


Bonus Action:

by greenonions



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: (NO major character death), (it's incredibly brief though), Alternate Universe - Dungeons & Dragons, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Frottage, Hairline fractures in the fourth wall, Hand Jobs, M/M, Magic During Sex, Mild Fantasy Violence, POV Alternating, Semi-Public Sex, Some of which ends in Casual Fantasy Murder, That thing in D&D where everything seems to all happen in one calendar day, The Whole Works!, Unprotected Sex, consensual dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 19:44:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20569856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenonions/pseuds/greenonions
Summary: Brian's proficient in deception, but Pat's proficient in insight, so when they run into each other at the shithole Many Corners tavern, it's really anyone's guess who's gonna outsmart whom in their brilliant schemes to scam the other out of all his gold. Especially since they're both at the ends of their ropes and willing to try - and to risk - just about anything.





	1. Fast Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trigonometrical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trigonometrical/gifts).

> *descends dramatically down the staircase like a debutante at a coming-out ball, with the Gill and Gilbert dramatic reading of Mr. Brightside playing in the background*
> 
> HELLO HELLO you can call me greeno, long time listener, first time caller! Basically what happened is: I did an RPF, and then an old friend from an old fandom slid into my DMs and said "I see you did an RPF, did you know I am doing an RPF as well" and I said "NOW WAIT HANG ON YOURS LOOKS LIKE A LOT OF FUN TOO" and a month and a half later here we are, and AO3 user Trigonometrical has dragged me into this fandom kicking and screaming but, like, with joy. And with just a _lot_ of thirsting over Pat Gill in our DMs. Anyway, it seemed like the best way to bully her into writing me a bunch of fic was to bribe her with some of my own. this is wildly self-indulgent and unconstrained and also the longest thing I've written in a thousand years so WAHOO LET'S GET WILDT
> 
> (also, between the time I started writing this and the time I finished, Pat Gill went to a renaissance faire in elf ears, so you're welcome for manifesting that, internet.)
> 
> Ok real business-mode fic notes!  
1\. It's RPF, fam! Even as wild and wacky an AU as this is, respect the Chill RPF Vibes code of conduct and don't tell these people I wrote this, ever. And if you are one of these people, understand that this all Not Real For Funsies, and please take this opportunity to just... Leave before you get upset idk  
2\. Though it says there are 3 chapters to this fic, the fic proper is really only two chapters long, act I and act II. **The story ends at the end of act II**. The third "chapter" is a sort of appendix with supplementary stats and lore. NERD SHIT!!  
3\. I tried to make the tags comprehensive, so consider some of them as very, very mild content warnings also, I guess! But it's really all fun and games here and no one ever feels super bad or has a super bad time!

ACT I

Bonus Action: Fast Hands

> _"I rolled for my character, I'm a bard and I'm proficient in speaking." --Brian, Gill & Gilbert episode 6  
_  
_"It looks like Pat Gill is built for speed and built to murder!" --Brian, Gill & Gilbert episode 11_

\-----

Okay, truly, that could probably not have gone _any_ worse.

Pat hates when gigs for the guild take him this far from the city. In an urban area, every trick he's picked up on blending in and slipping by and staying under the radar works exactly like it's supposed to, easy as breathing, easy as twisting his shoulders a certain unassuming way into the shadow of someone who's being way, way more, uh, assuming. Where he isn't the only half-elf for miles, where his soft black leathers actually function as camouflage in the nooks and shadows of stony buildings; not out in the _woods_, in wherever the hell Vawksferry & Fields is, where the brown-on-brown of the trees make him look for all the world like a _minor illusion_ someone cast as a distraction and not the thing they were trying to distract folks from in the first place. Where certain terms had concrete understood meanings, where _they leave first thing in the morning_ meant a house was empty by dawn, and _two-story manor with easy window locks on the second floor_ meant a nice, tall, fragile-glassed bougie house nestled in among its fellows on an even bougier street.

The house was on the side of a cliff. Because that's a place where people put houses, apparently. And Pat got there nearly an hour and a half early, he stayed out all_ night_ for this, and all he did was blow up the spot of the other guildie they sent (who _was_ planning to be there on time) and break half his thieves' tools in the process. The whole thing is a wash, a total shitshow, and Pat's left stalking down to the shitty, _shitty_ tavern at that crossroads on the east of town ("town," with scarequotes, he thinks sullenly) with, let's check, yep, _nothing_ to show for it, financially speaking. The chill and the fog billowing up off the river to the north are only just clearing out under the morning sun, it's still _so damn early_, and Pat's been at least half-awake for _hours_ and he just wants to like, start today over as if it never happened.

He sighs down at his boots, slows his pace to a crawl on the dusty path, and, despite the lingering chill in the air, tugs off his dark, close-cut jacket and flips it halfway inside out. Of the four patches sewn into the lining across his back, embroidered black-on-black and affixed with imprecise but sturdy stitches, Pat plucks at the second-left - first with his nails, then with the knife that hangs from his hip - until it detaches, and in his hand unfolds itself from a stiff chip of threads into the small deerskin bag it actually is. When he digs his hand into the bag his arm sinks in, enchantedly, all the way to the elbow, and he rummages through its contents until he can take stock of all his coin.

Shit. That's - not even enough for one night's stay at that shit tavern. Pat literally cannot even afford to go to sleep right now. _Fuck_. He sighs again, wipes his free hand down across his face, and then extricates himself from the bag of holding, a few coppers tucked into his palm. Well, at least he can afford a drink. He pockets the coin and re-holsters the knife and then closes the bag, pressing it back into its spot on the inside of his jacket, where it politely re-knits itself into the little patch, tucked safely away as he slips the jacket back on.

It's been a long, long walk back down from that cliffside manor, but Pat's finally nearing his destination, sees its peeling-paint magenta sign looming up out of the forest: the Many Corners, a squat, angular one-story building with four or five similar dirt paths leading up to it. He hasn't stopped over here for some time but it doesn't look like it's changed a bit. Pat waits for someone else to be leaving the building and then insinuates himself noiselessly inside in their wake, running purely on rogue instinct. Flips his hood back from his face, out of respect, and runs a hand through his hair to straighten it. Beelines it for the bar, taking stock of the other ten a.m. patrons of the tavern as he goes, that nice bearded guy in the blue monk kit he's seen a couple times, some goblins, whatever, yes he'd like a drink, he's aware of the time, look, it's been a bad day already - oh, no, okay, it's been a while since he was in, he didn't realize you had coffee, yes, actually, that's a much better -

Whoa, holy shit, who is _that_.

There's a makeshift stage filling one corner of the Many Corners, a little performance space for sorry-ass bards, and sitting at the table closest to the stage, flipping antsily through a stack of papers, is - well, honestly, maybe a not-quite-so-sorry-ass bard. (_Has_ to be a bard, though - no one else could pull off that hat and that mustache at the same time.) Pat reclines against the bar with his coffee and slowly catalogues details off him one by one, trying to get a read: wave of tawny hair falling past his slightly pointed ears (another half-elf? out _here_?); the brilliantly gaudy turquoise-teal blouse with sleeves big and poofed-out enough that Pat could probably worm his entire body through one of them if he tried; the pale, creamy tan of his leather-armor jerkin, embossed through with sharp clean detailing, and the matching shorts cut short enough to show some definite thigh; chunky, fashionable boots, with brightly-colored woolly socks peeking out overtop that don't match each other but do, somehow, match the polish on his fingernails. _Absolutely_ a bard, even if Pat couldn't also see the finely-crafted ukulele hooked over the back of his chair. Somehow, an eyesore and a sight for sore eyes all at once; every inch of him is a perfectly calculated amount of over-the-top.

If Pat were being honest, this guy is - pretty damn hot.

Unfortunately, Pat is a rogue, and he's made his entire livelihood off being dishonest.

Because the most noticeable, conspicuous, gorgeous thing about this guy? Is the coin-purse absolutely _bulging_ off his hip. Pat recognizes the make immediately, the Waterdeep artisan who specializes in this style, from purses he's lifted before - it's attached by a couple of straps, one belted around the bard's narrow hips and another that hooks around his left thigh, with a series of buckles holding them in place. These babies are tricky and he's gonna have a lot of work to do to get it loose and grabbable. But man, it's a _thick_ one. The guy's gotta be flush as hell. And, well - Pat gets one last good, long look at him before he has to cut himself off, not wanting to be caught ogling - Pat, for some reason, doesn't feel like he's gonna mind putting the work in on this one. At all.

He's absolutely gonna rob this guy.

\-----

Oh, Brian is absolutely gonna rob this guy.

For real, though, it's been a while since Brian had to turn to petty thievery, despite the fact that he's honestly pretty good at it. But he's trying to go _legit_, with the bard thing, like he'd always planned, stop using his performance skills for running unflappable cons on unsuspecting rich folks and really get out there. That's why he's back here at this garbage tavern in the first place, chasing a playwright gig from a traveling band of thespians who claimed they were desperate for new material. But if the meeting he just had with their troupe leader is any indication, they don't yet consider themselves desperate _enough_.

Brian scoffs to himself. Some people just aren't ready for his _art_.

The problem is, he was kind of - counting on this gig, to keep him in the black, this time. He's had three strike-outs in a row and his countdown timer on his _by popular demand_ street cred at the Many Corners is swiftly nearing zero. Rifling through his bag as he shuffles his papers back in order and tucks them away, he realizes - _hoo_ \- he doesn't even have enough to cover a single night's stay if they ask him to start paying in coin. He fidgets, for the umpteenth time, at his left middle finger, but of course Laura's ring still isn't there either. And it's in this moment of despair, where he's inches away from slumping his forehead flat to his table in defeat, that the tallest, glaringest drink of water that Brian has seen for _days_ slips in the tavern door.

Bless his heart, in any other context he'd be subtle, but it's mid-morning and the sun is starting to come in through the faceted glass windows and this guy is dressed just a li-_i_ttle bit like he's gonna go break into someone's house. Dark jacket, cut short and close and with some stylish structure to it - not quite black, but not quite _not_ black, actually almost perfectly echoing the soft-looking strands of hair that curtain down around the guy's face. Under that, a just-as-soft-looking grey tunic with a hood that pops out the top of the jacket, belted at his waist but spilling down a little further, covering the thighs of his okay-that's-definitely-black leather armored leggings that fade - at the end of his long, _long_ legs, oh okay - into big, masc, shit-kicking boots. Brian one hundo approves of the _aesthetique_ this guy is rocking, and can see how it's engineered to go wholly unnoticed most places, nothing glossy, nothing bold. The minuscule mostly-halfling township of Vawksferry & Fields is not most places, though, and he's sticking out like a sore half-elf thumb, officially qualifying him for the position of "easiest mark going."

If only Brian could figure out where he's hiding his _cash_....

With no small amount of affected-casualness of his own, Brian twists around to scoop his uke from where it's hanging on the back of his chair, crossing his legs and propping it up to play out a few soft chords, mostly to himself. Under his breath, he hums out a few notes in tandem, and slowly the tendrils of arcane power curled in his core bleed into the music, until he can send out a quick and dirty _detect magic_.

"Aaand boom goes the dynamite," he whispers, grinning.

There's a dagger looped to the guy's belt that Brian didn't notice before - judging from its magical signature, probably just a run-of-the-mill enchanted weapon, no big. The string of hits Brian gets across the guy's back are _much_ more compelling. All conjuration, but each with a slightly different flavor - and look, Brian's seen a Robe of Useful Items before, okay - he's pretty sure he's made which one is the guy's moneybag, and if he's going through this much trouble to hide it he _must_ be loaded - and so now it's just a matter of getting that sweet jacket off him and snatching the patch loose -

And, well, if Brian David Gilbert, level six College of Lore-trained bard, can't get a hot guy out of his jacket, this week has taken even more out of him than he thought.

He's not quite sure what tack to take here, though, since surly gothy rogue types are like, not his usual, and he's a little out of practice _vis a vis_ the art of seducing someone in order to steal their stuff, versus seducing them just to - seduce them. Sugary sweet? Sassy argumentative negging, get the guy's hackles up in more ways than one? Slutty, but like, believably slutty? _Unbelievably_ slutty? Brian's got too many options clamoring through his head, racing to be the path that his hyperactive brain chases all the way down, and in the meantime he _is_ gonna get caught staring at this guy. He waits until their eyes "accidentally" meet and then darts his away demurely, slinging his ukulele over his shoulder and crossing to the bar. Maybe best to give it a moment, and have the guy come to him.

Brian leans against the bar, in a way that he _knows_ stretches out the long line of his neck and torso, a little ways away from his darkly-clad mark. Easy enough to reach but giving the guy his space. He orders an iced tea, managing not to wince when he says _yeah, just on my tab_, and makes a small show of taking a long, throat-bobbing drink from the narrow glass when it arrives. By the time he's setting it back down, he's already being approached. _Excellent_.

"Haven't seen too many other half-elves around here," the man says, an admirably smooth opening line. Up-close-and-personal, Brian can see his features that much more clearly; his pale complexion and dark hair obviously come from his human side, but there's a leeriness to his eyes and his cheekbones and the shape of his ears that's unmistakably drow. The little swipe of white through the right of his beard is a bit of a giveaway, too. Oh gosh, that's _cute_. Brian finds his gaze catching on it just a little bit too long before he's able to tick back up and meet the man's eyes again.

"No, I don't suppose you would have," Brian agrees. He twists to face him a little more straight-on and offers a hand to shake. "I'm Gailbraithe."

"Sure you are," the man says, one eyebrow inclining skeptically. "Pat."

Okay, well, at least they're _both_ giving obviously fake names. "Pat short for Patrick, or just Pat?"

"Uh, Pat short for, short for Patrick, but either is fine, really," he says, easily. Oh, this guy's good.

They shake hands. There's a weird second where Patrick - falters, squeezes a subtle twitch against Brian's wrist with the tips of his fingers (good lord his hands are _long_), and Brian files that weirdness away for _sure_ but powers through. "So is this the part where I ask if you're in Vawksferry for business or for pleasure?"

"You know, when you say it like that, it sounds like it's a trick question," says Pat, smirking a little bit. "Um, business, I guess, but even that was kind of a bust, just now, really, uh - really struck out."

_Whoof_. Brian schools the pangs of empathy off his face. If he's not careful, he might start to actually like this guy. "Sorry to hear it," he says instead. "What kind of work are you in, exactly?"

Pat's face is equally impassive. "Y'know, just some, some guild work, mostly. I - I travel in a lot of circles."

"Looks to me like you travel in a lot of _layers_," says Brian. Along the bar, he rests his fingers lightly on the back of Pat's jacket-clad arm. "And with that hot coffee? Aren't you just dying to take this thing off?"

The skeptical eyebrow is back and more skeptical than ever, and yeah, Brian earned this one. God, even to his own ears that sounded impossibly _corny_. Wrong angle, Gilbert. Roll it back. "Nah, I'm good, actually," Pat says flatly, angling his body away from Brian just a smidge and busying himself with his drink again.

But Brian budges in closer, keeping himself in Pat's orbit. He makes sure Pat can see when he rolls his eyes hard at his own idiocy, a gesture that's only half-affectation at this point. "Wow, gosh, I'm sorry," he says earnestly. "It's - well, you said it yourself, there aren't a lot of half-elves out this way, and I guess I'm just a little out of practice." He sets his hand more fully on Pat's arm, stroking a little at the sturdy treated weave of the jacket's exterior. Pat, Brian notices, does not move away from the touch.

He sets down his coffee. "Mmm, well, I guess I'd be willing to give you a pass," he says, turning back to Brian, his posture even more open than it was before, his dark eyes hooding over just a little bit, voice lower and just a shade silky-smoother. "If you wanted to take a second stab at it."

"You're too kind," says Brian. He bites at his bottom lip and casts his gaze to the ceiling, a caricature of somebody thinking real hard, and then grins as he volleys back, "Well, gee, Patrick, speaking of stabbing, is that an enchanted dagger in your pocket or are you just _real_ happy to see me?"

Pat _laughs_ \- a real, genuine laugh that barks out of him, the whole lower half of his face spreading open to accommodate it, his body rocking back a little away from Brian's. It's...goddamnit, it's _lovely_, and double goddamnit it's possible he got this all wrong. It's possible that Pat _isn't_ just a surly goth easy mark, and that the best tack to take here is to just - flirt, like a normal person. (With like maybe just a _hint_ of slutty.) And if that's the case, whoo boy is Brian potentially in a lot of trouble.

"Wow," says Pat. "Y'know, I am going to need to start making some wisdom saves, because you are really laying on _all_ the charms, aintcha, _Gailbraithe_."

That smooth low voice is back on his fake name, and there's a jingle, suddenly, and a soft pressure against Brian's thigh. He flicks his glance down to see that Pat has brushed up against one or two of the decorative hammered-metal zils that adorn the outside of his purse, but also mostly just at...his thigh, the strip right where his shorts end. Holy wow, Brian didn't even see him move his hand. Brian thought he was being smooth with the arm thing and here Pat is practically _fondling_ him in the middle of the Many Corners and Brian _didn't even notice_. He's only half-ashamed to admit that that is actually _really_ doing it for him. He shifts his legs, just a little, so the backs of Pat's knuckles rub in just a little deeper.

"Sneaky," Brian murmurs, fake-admonishing, and then point-two seconds later a flashbulb of an idea goes off behind his eyelids and he freezes.

_Sneaky._ Pat's a sneaky bastard, isn't he. This long-limbed, hella-handsome stranger who is flirting with Brian just as hard if not harder than Brian is flirting with him is a gosh-danged professional rogue. It's a risky ask, because they have literally just met and Brian is still definitely planning to steal this guy's money, but if the way Pat's leaning into him and _touching his thigh still oh god_ is any indication, even a weird as hell pull like this isn't gonna be enough to scare him all the way off, and if the pieces all slot into place right, Brian's really gonna like...kill two birds with one stone, here.

(Well, he thinks with a wry smile - maybe three, if he gets real lucky.)

He checks back in to the moment after his quick mental calculations and fixes Patrick - who's beginning to look a little confused - with a serious-ish, cautious-ish look. "Okay, here's my real second stab," he says, gearing up to it:

"D'you wanna help me sneak past a giant raccoon?"

And the look on Pat's face abso_lute_ly makes the whole thing worth it, even if zero out of three potential birds ultimately pan out in his favor. Brian cackles, just the once, and slides his hand down Pat's arm to circle around his wrist, tugging him gently toward the door. "C'mon, I'll explain on the way."

"Right _now_?"

"No time like the present, baby!" And to Brian's infinite delight, as he makes moves toward the tavern door, Pat doesn't resist. Just slinks his way along behind.

Brian, in his defense, _does_ explain along the way. And like any good bard, he does it through song.

"_Well I came into town just a couple days ago,_" he freestyles, no real meter or rhythm to it, just noodling away on his uke as they walk. "_Walkin' down the forest path from the northeast. Aaand I veered off into the trees to make a lil - pit stop._" He glances over at Patrick, who's dead abreast with him on the trail, even though Brian is ostensibly leading the way - Pat's sharp focus and long (god so long) legs setting his pace quicker, keeping them neck and neck - and cocks a _y'knowwudimean_ eyebrow.

Pat answers in kind, demonstrating that he fully _does_ know, thank you. "Go on."

"_Weeellll I was mindin' my own bus-i-ness,_" sings Brian, shifting the chord slightly more minor as the Danger™ of his story approaches, "_and outta the blue comes a GI-ANT! RAC-COON!_" Hard strums, and then a quick pause to speak straight: "And before you say anything!, I don't mean 'giant _for_ a raccoon,' I mean a raccoon like at least the size of a horse."

"Okay," admits Pat, "that is actually - pretty terrifying."

"_I-K-R!_" Brian belts. "_And I was in a - coommpromising situation,_" he continues, "_so I started to panic -_ "

"_As one does_," says Patrick, and - it's not _quite_ melodic, his voice is disastrously untrained, but he matches Brian's patter and cadence just enough for it to _count_ and Brian is, frankly, overjoyed, ohmigosh who is this guy, and he doubles down on the bit.

"_It sure did like all my shiny stuff! On account of, it's a giant raccoon! So to save my ass, I chucked some stuff the other way-ay-ay - Great big distraction!_"

"_Yeah that tracks._"

"_And one of those things was..._was..." Okay, this part - this part isn't funny. Brian grinds his idle jangling to a halt. "Was a really nice ring my sister gave me. It didn't - didn't even occur to me what I'd done, until it was already too late."

Laura had pressed the gold honeycomb band firmly into his palm the day she left Waterdeep College of the Bardic Arts with her _adventurer's pack_ slung over her back and said, _Bri, you're gonna need this more than I am, because your armor class is total shit_. And Brian had whined back, _I don't **need** a good armor class, I'm not gonna be an adventurer, I just want to - write plays, write music!_ But Laura wouldn't take no for an answer, and so Brian slipped the Ring of Evasion on, and spent the next hour with the tingling fizz of magical attunement coursing across his palm. And it there it had stayed, on through his own graduation, and every day since - until about four days ago, when the Raccoon Incident had occurred, and Brian, in blind panic, could only focus on _oh god stop staring at my hand and just **take** it!_ and bolting as fast as he could in the other direction.

Brian can't believe he was seriously gonna hock his sister's ring for cash. He also can't believe that the only reason he hasn't already hocked his sister's ring for cash is that _a giant raccoon stole it_.

"So a giant raccoon has your nice, like, sentimental-value ring," Pat recaps with a strong, shady air of _let-me-get-this-straight_, "and you need _me_ to, to what, exactly? Sneak into its - lair? Den? What do raccoons got?" (That last muttered almost more just to himself.)

"I don't know what normal raccoons have," says Brian, "but this one for _sure_ lives in a big cave on the side of a cliff face on the other side of the water. I followed it there with _locate object_ the day after, and it's definitely in there. The ring, I mean. But also obviously the giant raccoon."

But Pat makes a face at him as soon as he mentions _locate object_. "Wait, yeah, you're a bard, like, a for-real bard who can cast spells, and shit," he says. "What do you need me for? Can't you just, like, put it to sleep and get in there yourself?"

"Don't know that one," says Brian.

"Or like set it on fire and just kill the dang thing?"

"Don't know that one either, _and_ that seems a little unnecessarily cruel, Patrick."

"Oh, I see. The creature had no qualms with like, nearly attacking you viciously, and instead totally stole some of your shit, but you're still very concerned with - with the ethics of taking the thing out."

"Absolutely!"

"How incredibly magnanimous of you," Pat grumbles, but Brian doesn't miss the note of fondness creeping in around its edges. He's got a good ear, after all. "Remind me again while I'm doing this?"

"Because you saw a strapping young man with a heart of gold who's come into a spot o' trouble and you thought, As a fine upstanding citizen, I am obligated to come to this boy's aid!" Brian knocks his hip into Pat's where they walk side by side, only half-accidentally, and flashes him a dazzling grin. "'Cause y'all, I am not sneaky. You've _see-een me_," he adds, returning the ukulele to the mix.

Pat snorts, and though he doesn't smile back, it's a very _deliberate_ not-smile, and his eyes don't quite get the memo. "Yeah, well, guess it's not like I really had anything better to do today."

"That's me," says Brian, and he's right on the edge of finishing the quip, _good ol' Brian 'Nothing Better To Do' Gilbert!_, when he remembers himself, remembers Gailbraithe, and cuts off short. The unfinished bit hangs awkwardly in the air for a few paces or so until Brian fills the silence with some more half-assed strumming.

Having the ukulele out is a great decoy, it turns out, as they continue northeast up the path - across the wide, arching bridge that spans the garbage little stream the locals dare to call a "river" and up into a place where the path gets woodsier, and then, eventually, off the path entirely, retracing Brian's unfortunate footsteps from earlier in the week. The music makes him look busy, look focused on something specific and obvious. It makes him _not_ look like he's still trying to devise devious ways to get his traveling companion out of his stylish jacket. And/or daydreaming about what he'll find underneath it. Because what's outside of it - and Brian sees Pat mostly in right-profile, now, where they still walk in-step through the underbrush, gets the thickest sweep of his hair down over his intense dark eyes, the whitest bits of the scruff across his _criminally_ sharp-cut jaw - is already a lot to handle, and Brian can only imagine smooth, strong shoulders, or a flush of red trailing all the way down past sculpted, pretty collarbones. God, it really is a shame that Brian's gonna have to steal all this guy's money, because he's handsome as heck. (And half-elf, and at least relatively close to his age. And funny, and cute, and like, _interested._ And did he mention handsome as heck? He's got _dimples_, for crying out loud.) Brian winds backward a little through a random chord progression that hey, he actually really sort of liked; he could see himself, so easily, writing a song about this man. Songs, plural, even. Shit.

He's halfway through sort of puzzling out a little refrain, doing his best not to lose the trail or lose, like, the _plot_, when suddenly Pat's hand shoots out and presses to Brian's strings, silencing the music and stopping Brian in his tracks. He raises his other hand toward his face in the universal sign for _don't walk don't talk just listen_. Brian makes a questioning face toward Pat but obediently says nothing, lets the ukulele fall to his side.

"D'you hear that?" Pat whispers after a moment.

Brian runs a quick perception check but comes up empty. "No?" he offers.

Pat lets the silence percolate for a minute more, then - "Your raccoon doesn't have like, _friends_, does it?"

"Not that I know of," says Brian.

"Hmmm."

They wait a minute - two minutes - three minutes, utterly silent and still. Brian feels a cold little sweat pricking up behind his ears, feels his energy shifting to match Pat's in the weird, suspended moment - cautious, hyper-aware. _Roguelike_, perhaps. Finally, Pat lowers both arms back to his sides, scans his eyes across the treeline all around them, and then shrugs his shoulders, a little anticlimactic.

"Sorry," he says. "I definitely still think I heard something, but whatever it might've been must have decided to pass up on us. Let's just fuckin' - proceed with caution, yeah? Maybe kill the tunes."

"Yeah for sure," says Brian, nodding his head slowly and swinging the uke back over his shoulder on its strap. "We're like - we're almost there, anyway."

He's right. In just a few more paces, the trees give way to scrubby, rocky banks, and Brian guides them just a bit further along the water's edge until he's able to point out their destination. The cave he knows as the raccoon's home is about twelve feet up the side of a low-slung cliffside, swathed in just a few slivers of shadow with the angle of the midday sun. Brian can't see the raccoon from down here but he just _knows_ the bastard's in there.

"Okay, raccoons are nocturnal, right?" says Brian, keeping his voice low. "Mostly? I feel like big boy is probably asleep, or at least like, snoozy. It should just be like a quick, in-n-out, Don't Wake Daddy missh. I hope."

"And just for the record, you can absolutely hear how crazy it sounds to be asking someone you just met to do this when you say it out loud, right?"

"Oh, one hundred percent," says Brian.

"Okay, cool. Just as long as...." He trails off; Brian can see him sizing up the rocky cliff face, the size and shape of the cave opening, the distance down into the stream; possible escape routes, hiding spots. "Do we - have a plan for if things go south?"

"Run like hell? I can tell you right now, my man, I'm not exactly equipped to fight this thing. I'm a lover, not a fighter," Brian says with a preen and a flourish, "plus its claws are like the size of my forearm."

"So you think we can _outrun_ it?" Pat says, more than a little fatalistically.

Well when he puts it like _that_ \- "Oh god, Patrick."

"Just - just sit tight, okay?" says Pat. "Maybe - stay out of sight. Protect yourself." He stops scanning their surroundings and turns his gaze square to Brian. He looks - oh, golly, he looks serious. "Just in case I totally whiff up there."

Brian swallows thickly. "And what about - you protecting _your_self?"

"I got a couple tricks up my sleeve." Pat's hand steals down to the dagger hanging from his belt, and Brian watches as he unholsters it, spins it in his hand a couple of times like he's testing the heft, slides it back home. It's the first good look Brian is getting at what he assumes is Pat's primary rogue weapon: the dagger is midsize and stiletto-thin, the handle and crossguard the same gleaming chrome-silver metal as the blade itself, polished nearly mirror-smooth. It looks not unlike a letter opener, but like a letter opener you could kill someone with. It makes the small, garden-variety fighting knife Brian has for if he ever regretfully gets caught in a melee look like a child’s toy in comparison.

This dagger absolutely has killed people, Brian realizes, that cold sweat at his neck not going anywhere. _Pat_ has absolutely killed people, _with this dagger_. And watching Pat twirl it expertly through his insanely long, _insanely_ dexterous fingers, the silver flashing in the sun, his grip never faltering once, has lowkey given Brian like, a competency half-chub. Them _hands_ tho. He could drag that blade coy and cool and deadly across the vulnerable skin of Brian's throat and Brian would thank him.

Oh, god, focus up, Gilbert. You're supposed to be focusing on getting Pat to get Laura's ring back for you. Wait, _no_ \- Brian is _supposed_ to be focusing on _stealing Pat's money!_ Lordy lou. Brian can't believe he's let himself get, like, double-sidetracked on this. But truly - can he not prioritize more than one mission objective at once? Can he not _contain multitudes_, as a woke, modern bard? Besides, Pat seems to be taking this whole absurd stealth op that Brian's enlisted him for remarkably seriously, which is still unbelievably wild when examined from the outside. He feels like he owes it to Pat - Pat who knows his way around a blade, who's the same Pat who goofs along with Brian's ukulele nonsense, who is also the same fuckin' Pat who touched Brian's thigh so, so tender and borderline indecent in the bar - to at least ride this thing out while it lasts.

A sudden fluctuation of air and Patrick is standing _right_ next to him, so much closer than before when they'd kind of stopped to regroup, holy _shit_ how does he keep doing that. Rogues! "Remind me again what this thing looks like?"

"It's a - giant raccoon - ?"

"No, dumbass, the _ring_."

"Oh, uh," says Brian. "It's - gold, with a stripe of red through it, and it's kind of more a hexagon shape than a perfect ring, it's got corners - "

"Got it. Okay there's a rock about ten paces to your left that you should get behind," and then Pat presses his hand, firm-but-gentle, like he _means_ something, right to the small of Brian's back, and just like that he's _gone_. Like, Brian blinks his eyes and in three seconds Pat has already traveled at least forty feet, and some of that was _vertically_, up the side of the cliff in the direction of the raccoon's lair. Whoa, wow, this thing is officially popping off _right now_, huh.

Pat's tone of voice re: the hiding place certainly brooked no argument, and Brian's got no cause not to trust Pat's instincts at this point, so he does as he's told, trying to slip into posissh as smoothly as possible, tugging out his ukulele as he goes. He almost wants to - _inspire_ Patrick, somehow, especially after that parting caress, but it's probably smarter to stay quiet at this point rather than tossing out anything with a quote-unquote _verbal component,_ so he just...clenches his hand nervously around the neck of his uke, ducking into the cover of the big boulder and training his eye on Pat as he straight-up _flies_ up the cliff face, those bitchin' sure-footed boots finding billy-goat-style traction on what looks like absolutely nothing, long limbs spidering up and out. The muted black-grey tones of his wardrobe are finally doing their due diligence and camouflaging him against the craggy stone; if Brian hadn't already had a bead on him, he'd be _real_ tricky to spot. _Stealthy_.

He takes a little bit of a circuitous route and actually ends up approaching the mouth of the cave almost from above, swinging into the radius of the opening feet-first and then dropping deftly to the lip of the ledge at its entrance. Brian distantly registers that oh, he's holding his breath as Pat slips inside the lair and disappears from his sight.

Oh, gosh.

Oh, gosh.

Brian's fingers fret out some chords almost on autopilot. He doesn't - there's not a spell in his ouevre that's gonna get Pat out of the kind of scrape he will be in if this takes a bad turn. He's not an _adventurer,_ he's a performer, just a li'l song and dance man, he's not cut out for this, his _major images_ and _healing words_ are only gonna get him so far. This was supposed to be a simple con job on a gothy himbo, not something with like, _consequences_. The moments in which Brian still has no visual on Patrick stretch on, and on, and on. Brian's hand quavers just a little bit, and a faint tiny _E_ rings out along the banks of the stream. Shit.

Just when Brian thinks he can't take it anymore -

\- Pat comes _flying_ out of the mouth of the cave, soaring over the ledge of the opening and skidding down the sheer cliff face, dragging his left hand and left heel against the rock to slow his fall. Oh god, that doesn't look especially good - yep, confirmed, Pat is _booking_ it toward Brian as soon as he hits the ground again, thunking through water at the stream's edge, all thoughts of sneakiness far behind him, and also a giant raccoon significantly less far behind him.

"Oh, _fuck_!" yells Brian.

"TIME TO GO!" yells Pat.

Brian doesn't wait for Pat to reach him before he shoots off running, still clinging clumsily to his uke as he _bolts_ away from the beast pursuing them. He pays no attention to where he's going, just pounds a deep and wending route into the forest, pouring on as much speed as he can muster - like, he feels pretty freakin' adequately motivated, okay. Pat, swift and leggy as ever, gains on him, meets and then outpaces him, and now Brian's following Pat through the trees, focusing on the glint of his dagger where it bounces at his hip as a beacon of desperate hope. He has a brief, fleeting memory of this morning, when his biggest problem was getting his latest script rejected, that almost sends him laughing out of sheer absurd hysteria. But laughter would be a waste of his precious oxygen, which he needs to like. Run.

He does dare to gasp out, "Patrick!"

Pat, to his credit, could probably be running faster, but is only moving as fast as Brian can, keeping them in one another's sight. He risks a glance over his (and Brian's) shoulder, back at the raccoon. "It's - fuckin' _gnarly_ \- " he pants. "We gotta - I don't know how we're gonna lose it - "

Brian squeezes hard at his ukulele, grimaces at the stupid-ass thing he's about to do, and -

\- oh god he better not end up regretting this -

\- grits his heels in and skids to a halt, whirling around to face the raccoon.

"Gailbraithe!" yells Pat, which only makes Brian cringe harder.

"Hang on," Brian says, "I'm gonna - try some shit - !"

"The _fuck_?"

"_Don't look!_"

As frantically as he has ever done a thing in his goddamned life, Brian flips open his jingling thigh bag and roots around until his hand comes out clutching a tiny crystal phial of phosphorescent schmear. He smashes the phial onto the body of his ukulele, spattering it with glow, and slams out the most aggressive C-minor of his life.

A cube-shaped pocket of the forest, right in the scampering raccoon's trajectory, suddenly pops and flares with a riotous twist of colors and shapes, lit up even brighter than the early-autumn sunlight that's beating down from above. Brian sends up a silent prayer that Pat was either smart enough to close his eyes or wise enough to make the save; their pursuant animal, of course, doesn't have the luxury of Brian's warning, and didn't stand a chance. Brian heaves a deep inhale and holds it, and waits the rest of the six-second beat until he can be absolutely certain that the raccoon has succumbed to his _hypnotic pattern_.

The raccoon falls still, successfully hypnotized.

Brian breathes out. "Okay, _run!_"

He and Pat serpentine the fuck out of there, hugging the line of the stream but not too closely, sprinting blindly as far away from the raccoon as they possibly can in the minute's worth of head-start they've gained from Brian's spell. They bolt until Brian's lungs finally do give out, after all, and then just a few seconds more, Pat hollering out breathless encouragements to him till they pop out into a soft little pseudo-clearing that's less trees, more moss and flowering bushes, and both collapse exhausted to the ground.

_Now_ Brian bursts out laughing, and Pat's only a second behind him.

"Holy shit!"

"Holy _shit_," Pat agrees. Okay, maybe it was just Brian who collapsed; Pat is still semi-upright, hunched over bracing his hands on his knees as he gasps up some much-needed air. "That's. Not what I was really planning on doing when I woke up this morning. And yet weirdly not that dissimilar, either. _Whooo._"

"I don't," pants Brian, "wanna know."

"Probably for the best."

"What," says Brian, "what _happened_ up there? How'd you - get made?"

Pat has the dignity to look a bit ashamed. "I got greedy," he confesses. "There was - it wasn't just your ring, it was an okay amount of other cool loot up there, that thing had a little bit of a hoard, and I went to snatch at some stuff and overshot my shit. I'm so sorry."

That soft apology - doesn't _break_ Brian's heart, per se, but there's maybe a tiny little fracture in there, okay. He feels his face fall, despite his best efforts. "Oh," he says lamely. "So I guess... I guess you didn't get..."

"Oh, no," says Patrick, and Brian looks up at him, dares to hope - "I got it." He's holding up his left hand, and there, balanced broadways between Pat's middle and index fingers, is Laura Gilbert's Ring of Evasion, glinting red-n-gold in the sunlight of the clearing.

"Oh my _god_!" Brian cries, scrambling clumsily to his feet. He lurches towards Pat, reaching his hand out to take the ring, and Pat - jerks his hand back, holding it just out of Brian's reach.

"Now hang on, sir," he says, his dark eyes narrowing, his mouth curving in a wicked, teasing grin. "What exactly is to stop me from just...keeping this thing for myself? I _did_ do all the work." He does that - that _infuriatingly_ cool thing that Brian has seen lesser men do with gold pieces or gambling chips, where the ring flips and rolls through Pat's fingers, over-under-over-under, back and forth across the wide span of his knuckles. Brian hates how easy he makes it look, even though it's got to be hard with a ring that's so small. _God_ this bastard is hot. Brian is so screwed.

"Horseapples," he protests, much less emphatically than he could, also grinning a little. "If it weren't for my ol' razzle-dazzle back there we'd still be running for our lives."

"If it weren't for you, I _could_ probably still be running," Pat points out.

"_Plus_," Brian presses on, "it's _actually_ a magic item, which you both wouldn't even know how to use, probably, _and_ ironically don't even need, if you're that, y'know, _evasive_."

"Magic item, huh?" says Pat. "Well now I want to keep it even more, you idiot."

But Brian's on to something, now, still staring at the ring where it flicks back and forth through Pat's fingers, he's already adding, "_Besides_,"

and he goes for broke on it -

"I don't think it'd even fit you."

\- _Unbelievably slutty_.

"How big are your hands, anyway?"

Brian holds his left hand up, prompting for Pat's unoccupied right, and in the space between them in the forest clearing, they press their hands together, palm-to-palm. It's, oh god, even worse than Brian had imagined: Pat's got at _least_ an inch on him in every direction, and he can feel a callus in the crook of his index finger that must be a result of wielding that shimmering knife. His palm is warm and gentle where it fucking dwarfs Brian's, and Brian has to bite back a soft little curse, quips instead, "Oooh, check out the dexterity score on Patrick," schools his face into the closest cousin to a wink that doesn't involve actually winking.

Pat rolls his eyes so, _so_ fond, and then his whole face washes over with smug hunger and he threads his fingers through Brian's and uses their joined hands to yank him toward his mouth. Brian goes easily, lets himself be soundly kissed by Patrick, and oh, he's a good kisser. Oh. _Oh,_ Pat is an _insanely_ good kisser. Maybe it's still just the adrenaline of their chase-sequence talking, but Brian thinks like, maybe he's never really been kissed like this before. Pat's untangled their hands so he can cup one around Brian's jaw, thumb stroking at his face just a little, and skim the other gently (but not, Brian realizes with a thrill, all _that_ gently) all along Brian's body till it rests at Brian's hip, as he drops his mouth open to get at Brian's tongue, his breath coming hot and wet against Brian's lips, still panting just a little bit, or maybe - panting _again_. Brian feels his throat make the faintest little choked-off whining noise as he lets himself be swept up in it, curling his arms up over Pat's shoulders, lets Pat draw his tongue into his own mouth and trap it there. Of course Pat kisses like this, Brian thinks - Pat does _everything_ like this, with startling quickness and unfailing, deadly accuracy, fuckin' no-scoping Brian right to his core.

But the stereotype persists, of course, that bards are traditionally the horniest members of society, and Brian only feels a little bit of shame any time he admits that he is fully part of the reinforcement of that stereotype. While Pat's sucking hungrily on his tongue, not exactly using his teeth but not _not_ using his teeth, Brian cants his body closer to Pat's, guiding their hips into their natural fit, toying his fingers smooth and steady across the back of Pat's neck; and when Brian times the first shallow, confident roll of his pelvis to coincide with both his hands sinking deep into Pat's hair and just, _just_ barely tugging - well, Brian can't help but grin when Pat has to break the kiss because all the air is punching out of his lungs on an overwhelmed curse.

"Oh, _fuck_," he says, panting hard, so hard against the sloppy corner of Brian's mouth.

"Yeah," agrees Brian. He hikes up one leg just a little at the hip, curving it around Pat's body, keeping them locked close, feeling the bulge of Pat's dick, half-hard and rising against his own. "_C'mon_."

He _feels_ Pat's own grin spread open along his skin, warm, sharklike. "You asked for it."

Brian has about half a second to process the shiver that elicits down his spine and up his thighs before Pat, fucking beautiful vicious quicksilver Pat, has both those long broad hands clutched firmly around the protrusion of Brian's hipbones and is crowding in in _in_ until Brian has to stumble and take a step backward. Pat walks them two paces, five paces, mouth still pushing and devouring at Brian's own as he uses his bruising kisses to nose forward, too, until Brian figures out what is happening at the exact moment in which it happens: Pat presses him up against one of the forest trees, wide and sturdy enough to take their full body weight but covered in a soft cushion of moss that keeps it from being too miserably hard or coarse at Brian's back. He uses his hips on Brian's own to pin them there, maneuvers his knees to the inside of Brian's knees to force him into a wider, more vulnerable stance, and with his legs spread a little like this Brian loses an inch or two of height and now Patrick looks so _tall_, practically looming over him where he's trapped between the tree and Pat's long, whipcord body. Their hard cocks slot into just the right alignment through their clothes like this and something hot and sharp _sings_ just under Brian's skin, like an ultra-low bass note plucked right next to his ear.

Oh, this is gonna be _good_.

Brian can't - and wouldn't want to, besides - fight the absolute _thrill_ that ripples through his whole body, sending his thighs spasming at Pat's hips and his fingers tightening to an eager clutch in Pat's hair, as he realizes that Pat is not only gonna take everything Brian wants to give him right now, but he's gonna dish just as much back. It's been a good while since Brian had this much of this kind of fun with somebody. It's been even longer since Brian totally boned someone in broad daylight in the middle of a forest. The thought has him laughing into their kiss, and Pat smiles at him, too, until he thrusts his hips forward in a jab that absolutely _nails_ Brian to the tree and that shuts him right the fuck up. Pat takes the opportunity, though, to begin dragging his mouth away from Brian's, down his chin and then up underneath it, along Brian's neck. Brian uses his hands nested against Pat's scalp to guide him to the spots that - oh, yeah, _there._ Right there, in the dip just above Brian's clavicle, Pat's teeth sink in and draw a moan out of Brian that just sounds way criminally too loud in the relative still and quiet of the woods. He looses one hand from Pat's hair to fumble at the laces to his own blouse, making room for Pat to suck further down his chest.

"_Shit_ you taste good," says Patrick, lifting his head up just enough that he can get in there, too, untying Brian's shirt, unbuttoning his vest, till they can brush both open and there's just a clear path of skin all the way down to where Brian's hard,_ so rock hard_ in his shorts. "Wanna - fuckin' - "

"You too," Brian insists breathily, "let's get - "

Brian slides his hands up and inside the front of Pat's jacket, around toward his shoulders, to -

\- oh, _shit!_ -

\- _shove his jacket off by the sleeves_. The compartment of Brian's brain that is always, for good or for evil, set to "multitask" does a victorious little cheer, but the rest of him shushes it as the jacket thuds densely to the ground because the heather-soft grey tunic Pat is wearing underneath it does not have any got-dang sleeves. It cuts off right at his shoulders, at his underarms, hanging just loosely enough to sort of square off his torso in a crisp, athletic way and leaving the long, milk-pale stretches of his arms completely bare. Fuck, and Brian had thought his _hands_ were bad.

"Good god _damn_, Patrick," Brian crows. "I am gonna write a mother-flipping sonnet about your biceps and the booksellers are gonna have to keep it under the counter in a black sleeve because like - " He doesn't feel the need to finish, just cups his hands around the highest bits of Pat's ribs to steady his descent as he leans in and fixes his mouth to that _spot_, y'know, on Pat's right arm, where his shoulder and his armpit and his frankly ridiculous bicep all sort of meet into this creamy, soft-looking little divot, which is just one hundred percent a spot Brian has to dig his teeth into like, _now_. Pat sucks in a sharp breath through his own teeth as Brian tongues and sucks and bruises, and comes away with his mouth a little wet and the tender flesh of Pat's arm already turning a sweet, perverse purple. He smiles down at it, satisfied. Even _more_ satisfied when he curls his hand around Pat's upper arm (_god_) and just softly, casually presses his thumb into the mark and Pat gives a full-body wince.

Brian turns his gaze back up to meet Patrick's dead-on, to sparkle and tease even through the thick, heavy cloud of arousal that's fogging up between them, and lets his lower lip catch sluttily between his teeth and his charisma tidal-wave out of him to its full _plus-6_ capacity and his thumb press in again, just a little bit harder this time.

Pat retaliates by scooping both huge hands around the backs of Brian's thighs and hoisting _up_, pinning him even harder to the tree with his feet now dangling more than a couple inches off the ground. Holy fuck.

"Holy _fuck_!" Brian gets on board so fucking fast, wrapping his legs around Pat's hips for the assist, and Pat adjusts his grip to something more sustainable and gets his mouth back on Brian's exposed chest, craning his neck forward to pepper his skin with nips and kisses. His hips start up a grinding rhythm in earnest now, and Brian matches it gladly, bucking against the leverage of the tree at his back to roll his cock against Pat's, glorying in the quick, precise, _Patrick_ tempo of it all. He can hear himself just fully making the most wanton noises now - listen, one thing Brian's never been is quiet, he's a _bard_ \- and he's clutching at every part of Pat he can reach, his tight-bunched shoulders, the soft tangle of his tunic's hood, his hair, again, to similar delicious results. He can feel the sweet avalanching pressure of a truly _righteous_ orgasm barreling down the pike towards him and he jolts his hips more, more,_ more_, god Pat's cock feels so _thick_ against him it's _brutal_ -

"We gotta," he gasps out, nudging against Pat's back to get his attention. "Hey, we gotta - I'm gonna fuckin' come in my shorts."

Pat groans and sucks one last kiss against Brian's collarbone. "Yeah, okay," he says, "but you have to - " He straightens up, leans as far away as he can manage from Brian while still holding him up - fucking _moves one hand away_, to help Brian scrabble at their flies, and is now holding Brian up _one-handed_ and Brian can see the muscle bulging and straining in Pat's arm and he has to just _take a minute, geez louise_ \- and with an amount of coordination Brian would call impressive considering how turned on they both are, they get Brian's shorts unbuttoned, Pat's leggings unlaced and his tunic pushed aside, until they are cock-to-cock between their close-crowded bodies up against the tree and the friction becomes that much more razor-sharp and sweaty and _good, fuck, so good_. The next pounding thrust of Pat's hips is reckless and erratic, and Brian _wails_, the snag of their sweating skin just absolutely fucking exquisite, and Pat must agree, because he does it _just like that_ again, and again, and again.

"You have to," he says again, obtusely, and Brian's brain click-click-clicks and finally _catches_ \- Pat's got both hands occupied holding Brian up around the thighs again, still, but Brian's hands are free, and so he jams one down between them and cups first around his own cock, then Pat's, too, holding them together in a loose grip. God, Brian's cock is leaking a little but Pat's is just _dripping_, and it's plenty slick enough to ease the friction of his hand, when Brian starts jerking them both, slowly at first and then escalating to match the pace Pat's been setting, swift and absolutely ruthless. Brian tries to focus on the obscene, scorching hot sight of his rosy intact cock and Pat's long, smooth cut one sliding in and out of the tunnel of his own fist, his strings-callused fingertips catching on Pat's veiny underside in a way he _knows_ is good, but his eyes are rolling back in his head despite his best efforts. He's _close_.

He uses his free hand to tilt Pat's head up and seal their mouths together again, all finesse gone from kissing, mostly just his tongue spearing wetly into Pat's mouth as they pant and gasp against one another; even Pat's moaning pretty regularly now, grinding his stiff dick into Brian's in a rhythm that's turned downright unforgiving at this point, the slam of it making Brian's bedazzled purse jingle at his side with every clip. Brian has a flickering fever-dream mental image of the two of them, in this exact same position, but with less clothing involved and with Pat plunging that flush, generous cock straight up inside of him instead of just jerking into his hand. He imagines that this same adroit, whip-quick skill set Pat's been consistently delivering this whole time, that speed and precision and casual grace, would translate perfectly to nailing Brian right in the prostate every. single. time.

Aaand that's it for Brian. He sinks his free hand into Pat's hair again and _wrenches_ his neck back as he comes, Brian's whole body bowing and arching up off the tree toward Pat's in the sluttiest, most desperate little curve, matched perfectly by the shameless moan that cascades out of his kiss-swollen lips. He shoots off all over his own fist and Pat's cock and a bunch onto Pat's poor tunic, and he just _keeps coming_, his hand spasming around the two of them, wringing out the sweet, electric dregs of his orgasm, the afterquakes that continue to wrack through him for what seems like ages after the main event. He vaguely registers that this is maybe not ideal for Patrick, who is still writhing and gasping against him and is still _very_ hard in his grasp, but it takes a few minutes for him to remember to care, because Pat just rocked his fucking world with some _forest frottage_ and he's gotta reorient his whole shit on its axis because like, _damn, yo_.

But Pat's thready, broken little plea of "_I'm so close_" does go a pretty long way, that unexpected vulnerability crackling straight down to the core of Brian, and he lets his spent cock flop down out of his grip, focusing solely on Pat now, pulling gentle but firm on his hair, letting him rut and drive his twitching wet shaft through Brian's hand and up against the exposed sliver of his pelvis and his abdomen, his rhythm collapsing, these sweet pitiful little choking noises welling up out of the back of his throat all high-pitched and needy and when he gasps out "fuck, fuck, _Gailbraithe_!" Brian can't even care that the name he's moaning is a fake, not after the bright, devastating perfection of the rest of it.

\-----

Pat doesn't even care that the name he moans out is fake, not after the bright, devastasting perfection of the rest of it.

His breath returns to him jerkily, his body still throbbing with orgasm, his thighs, his forearms - oh, right, Pat should probably set the guy down, huh. As he eases Gailbraithe back to his feet, Pat mouths one more sloppy little kiss at the edge of his lips, then rests his temple against Gailbraithe's own, panting, smiling, winding back to reality. Gailbraithe's hands come to rest gently at his hips. He can feel their hearts beating an insane tempo against each other, which slowly, slowly, _slows_, leaving just the blissed-out sputter and heat of a damn good time pulsing in his chest. Like, that was _good_, right? That was unplanned sex in the woods with a guy Pat just met a few hours ago and it was still weirdly, _insanely_ good?

"Okay," he says, collecting himself.

"Yeah," agrees Gailbraithe, sounding just as pleased. "Okay."

Pat pulls back the few inches it takes to look at him, and Gailbraithe cranes up and gives _him_ one more low-energy kiss, and then Pat pulls back a few more inches to begin on the process of peeling them apart, and - oh, yuck. Okay yeah, no matter how good it was, there are still some - unfortunate consequences.

"We could uh," he says. "We should - head back down to the river, maybe, to try to clean up - "

"Oh no wait, I got this," says Gailbraithe. "I know a cool move."

He extricates his messy right hand, shakes the worst of it off onto the ground; then uses it to trace a couple of runes Pat can't parse into the empty space between them, invisibly, which he then snatches at as if he's catching a bug, as if he can catch the symbols right out of the air. He punctuates this with a whistle, and when he opens his hand again it's glowing faintly turquoise in a shade that matches his shirt. He swipes his hand over the mess on Pat's clothes, and then on his own, and just like that all their come cleans up and vanishes. Gailbraithe keeps moving his hand around till there's nothing left, and then the glow fades.

"Well, shit," says Pat, eloquently.

"Mm-hmm!" says Gailbraithe. "That's why they call _prestidigitation_ 'bard's best friend.'"

"Who is the 'they' here, exactly?"

"It's certain definitions of 'they,'" he insists. Pat gives an eyebrow and is met with a wink. They're both still smiling.

So then it's just - they tuck themselves back into their clothes; Pat picks up his jacket, Gailbraithe picks up his hat and his ukulele, Pat runs a hand back through his hair to straighten it out from Gailbraithe's zealous grabbing, earlier. They neither of them seem to have much to say just yet, but Pat for one doesn't mind the quiet, still letting the warm, uncomplicated high of their past twenty minutes carry him along, the scratch of the forest providing a comforting background noise that puts Pat at ease the way straight-up silence never does. It feels like - maybe it should be awkward, but it's _not_. It's nice to just live in this sunlit, simpatico moment a little bit longer.

And then it passes, just as comfortably, and with a smile that's sweet and genuine and, god, honestly, a little bit disarming, Gailbraithe turns to him and says, "You're staying at the tavern, right? Can I walk you back?"

So Pat doesn't correct him, and lets him.

It isn't awkward. But - maybe it _should_ be. Plotting a path back through the forest that'll give the raccoon's territory a wide berth, hooking way north until they can double back to the bridge back into town, Pat dares to steal a glance down at the coin purse swinging from Gailbraithe's ("_Gailbraithe_," please) thigh as they walk. He wonders if the bard can tell, yet, if the weight of the purse has shifted balance from the progress Pat has made, if it rides against his body a little differently now. Pat feels like _he_ would notice, but then again he's trained for that kind of stuff. He wonders if the bard suspects a thing.

He wonders if he's gonna feel guilty about this, like, forever, or just for a little while, just until he's reaping the benefits of his heist and thanking his lucky stars and his own sticky fingers that he has a goddamn roof over his head. He wonders - how he ended up in a position to feel _guilty_ in the first place, if it was sometime between the tavern and the raccoon chase, between _nothing better to do_ and doing something so, _so_ damn good. Goddamnit.

Look, at least he got him that ring back. He'll let him keep that, after all.

Speaking of which, the bard is noticing that now, too. "Hey, wait," he says suddenly as they walk, "you still got my ring?"

Pat fuckin' _grins_ at him, because, "Nope. You've got it."

"But you didn't..." Gailbraithe holds both his hands up, and the ring is absolutely just right there, snug around his right middle finger, where Pat put it about six seconds into their first kiss. "Oh my _god_," he crows, fixing Pat with a suitably impressed face, smiling around jaw-dropped awe.

"I believe that is what they call _sleight of hand_," says Pat, shrugging like it was nothing - which it basically was, but it does feel nice to have his skills appreciated.

Gailbraithe swats him in his bare shoulder, real close to the mark he left earlier, which sends a sweet little tingle all the way down Pat's arm. "Ugh, okay, thank you," he says, shaking his head - but then pauses, his face sobering up, just a little. "Which is to say, like, seriously, thank you," he adds. "You - it's crazy that you did all of this just now, and - and there were so many points at which you could've jumped ship, and you _didn't_, which is even crazier, and like seriously why _didn't_ you just take the ring and leave me for dead when the raccoon started chasing us because you _one hundo could have_ \- "

"Gailbraithe," Pat cuts in. "Listen, I'm - I'm a thief, but I'm not a murderer, okay? No way could I have just - not to someone - " He casts his eyes away, squeamish with vulnerability. Guilty. Blehhh. "You'd - have done the same for me, surely."

"I would've done my best but I would've had to save my own hide, sir, that shit be_ crazy_." He shakes his head, but he's smiling. "But yeah, you're...probably right. Chaotic good, or whatever."

"Or whatever."

"Well, then, I suppose I owe this much to you," he says, with a dramatic flourish, which includes removing his hat and clutching it to his chest. His sober face swings _too_ sober, a mockery of gravitas, and Pat's already snickering. "I have not been entirely forthcoming with you, my good man: My name," and Pat can _hear_ the imaginary drumroll he's leaving the pause for, "...Is not Gailbraithe."

The laugh barks out of Pat. "Yeah, no shit, my dude."

The bard is giggling too. "It's Brian." He extends a hand to re-shake, a proper introduction. "Brian David Gilbert, of the Waterdeep Gilberts."

"I...have never fuckin' heard of you."

"That's because we are just regular ol' people!" he laughs. "With the obvious exception of my own fabulous self, of course. I'm a bard of the people and I'm hittin' the big times."

"Under the corny-ass name _Gailbraithe_."

"You never know." He nods in Pat's direction. "Okay, now you."

"Hm?"

"What's _your_ real name?"

That's enough to make Pat stop for a step or two, caught on the brick wall of disbelief, striding long to catch back up with Brian when his _brain_ catches back up with the conversation, because uh. "Wh... I was honest with you, dude, it's Pat. Short for Patrick."

"Nope," says Brian.

"The hell do you mean, _nope_, it's _my name_."

"There's no - 'Pat' is absolutely a name you just pop off when you need to bullshit something, that's like the most generic name on this earth - "

"Okay, your real name is _Brian_ \- "

"My _brother's_ name is Patrick, ew, what the heck!"

"You're acting like I chose this."

"You _did_ choose it! What kind of rogue gives out his real first name?"

"_Look_," says Pat, sharpening his voice a little against the tide of Brian's ridiculousness. "Something you learn, in this business, is that sometimes telling the truth about smaller stuff up front can make it way easier to lie about bigger stuff later. You like - you reduce the number of, of layers, between the like, story you're weaving, and the real truth. So you're less likely to slip up and break the illusion."

Brian traces the air and that turquoise glow is there in his hand again, this time manifesting into a very convincing health-potion-shaped bottle before it vanishes. "But illusion is my middle name, baybee."

"It's David."

"It is, it's absolutely David."

"I'm just saying," says Pat. "It's like - you need to keep some secrets, right? But you only need to keep _some_ secrets. And only from the right people."

Brian - smiles, at that, coy and fascinated. Pat can practically see the little insight-check gears in his head turning over. "And I'm the right people, is that it?" he says. "Patrick, what are you keeping from me?"

Pat...says nothing. If he's lucky, it plays as intentionally cryptic, alluringly mysterious, but - he knows Brian's just a little bit suspicious now, even after whatever that little heart-to-heart just was. Or maybe - especially after that. Pat's making such a rookie mistake by not just keeping his goddamn mouth shut.

But the problem, the real truth of it is: he _likes_ Brian. (God, and he likes him that much more now that he doesn't have to think of him as Gailbraithe.) He's funny, and clever, but not up his own ass about it like a lot of bards Pat has met, still able to be goofy and self-aware, and that jives with Pat's own sense of humor in a way he really wasn't expecting. Quick-witted but not nasty. And god, just, _dumb_ hot, even hotter than Pat could have possibly realized when he decided to mark the guy, his spry dramatic physicality, tight muscle in his thighs and the smooth expanses of his skin under those ridiculous clothes, that lush and oh-so-talented bard's mouth. He's...he's good people, and Pat may run pretty neutral, but he hates to steal from good people.

He does _love_ to steal from rich people, though, is the thing.

He's running out of time before he needs to make his move. Take a proverbial shit or get off the proverbial pot. If Pat wants to come out of this without any strings attached, for better or worse, he's gotta capitalize on the opportunity he's crafted here, all the little moving parts he put in place: The touches he's placed along Brian's waist and thighs, flipping all the buckles looser on his bag, when he had him up against the tree and before that below the raccoon's cave and before _that_, even, copping a feel at the bar right at the offset. Their walking rhythm that he already established on the way out, with him to Brian's left, closest to the bag.

The bridge - just a few yards ahead of them on the path, now.

Brian's futzing with his ukulele, Pat thinks tuning it, as they walk, and Pat makes a show of gazing fondly over at him, smiling at his focused expertise. It's...fucking hell, way too easy to fake, because it's really just like ninety-percent real. Guilty. Fuck, _fuck_. Focus up, Gill, or you'll chicken out of the easiest gold you've made in weeks. They're about a third of the way across the bridge when Brian notices Pat staring, and slows in his walk a little, turning toward him, too.

"See something you like?" he preens, waggling his eyebrows, over-exaggerated. They slow to a stop, and Pat reaches his hand out to Brian's, stills his tweaking at the ukulele until he swings it back over his shoulder and out of the way. Pat crowds closer into Brian's space, his jacket still on one arm but the other resting smooth against Brian's waist. So smooth. So precise. He walks him backward a little to the railing of the bridge.

He kisses him, soft and hungry and perfect, even though that isn't necessarily instrumental to the plan.

He whispers against his ear, "Nothing personal."

He shoulder-checks Brian over the railing and into the water.

As he's falling, of course, Pat slips his practiced hands down along Brian's thigh, and clings to the bag where he's loosed it, letting the gravity that's taking Brian down do the rest. He watches the expression on Brian's face turn from confusion to _hurt panic_ as he realizes what's happening, as he flails out to try to grab ahold of something to slow his fall, and it cuts to the very core of Pat, _god_, he fucked up, he got about two inches too deep in this and it's stinging like a bitch, but - but -

The expression turns again, from hurt panic to - wry apology, wrapped around a big dose of _whoops, you caught me!_ tucked into a lax, faux-sheepish smile. Their eyes meet and time slows to a crawl. The moment suspends:

Brian's flailing, grasping hand has found purchase in Pat's jacket hanging over his arm, and just as gravity is helping Pat snatch Brian's purse, it's helping Brian snatch a patch from the jacket's inside lining, the second from the left. In his hands, the patch springs forth into a small deerskin bag, and Brian's still clutching it close as he plummets into the water and gets carried swiftly downstream.

He's yards away in no time, and Pat's left standing here on the bridge in stunned shock, holding Brian's bag. Watching Brian drift down the river - all part of it, to put as much distance between them as quickly as possible, make a clean getaway. Watching Brian drift down the river holding _Pat's_ bag, which was in no way fucking part of it at all.

"Goddamnit," Pat swears, in disbelief just as much as anything. He stares out at Brian's shrinking form for just a minute more, and then he shakes it off, and starts hauling reluctant ass back to the Many Corners.

Okay, y'know, he can work with this, he thinks, as he leaves the forest behind in favor of the _fields_ part of Vawksferry & Fields, as it transitions into the township proper. Pat's gonna miss a couple of his favorite backup daggers, and it'll hurt not having good ol' Sir Charles, but probably the biggest loss is gonna be the bag of holding itself, which'll really be no problem to replace with the chunk of change he just scooped, or anything non-gold Brian's been toting around in there that Pat can sell. He just needs to take a night at the tavern, regroup in the morning, and get to a place with a halfway decent stall market, or a magic shop, or something. No big deal.

Just -

\- He _knew_, is the thing. He knew exactly which patch to grab for as he was falling to totally steal Pat's bag. Which means he knew the patches were _anything_ in the first place, and that he'd have to get Pat's jacket off to steal from him at all. Which means he knew exactly what he was doing when he shoved Pat's jacket off while they were - oh, god_damnit_. Was that, was that - did Brian have a plan the _whole time_, too? From the moment he teased Pat with the long, strong lines of his body at the tavern bar, was Brian always planning to -

Because Brian didn't, he needed, because he thought -

Oh no, no no no, _no_ -

Pat can see the Many Corners tavern now, on the not-too-distant horizon, but his jogging feet thunk to a halt right there on the road, and he pulls over, drops to his knees in the weeds, and for the first time actually bothers to take a moment and look inside the purse he's just lifted. The little beads and zils adorning the outside clink and jangle as he rummages inside. It's a tight squeeze; the bag is absolutely full.

Of junk.

Pat pulls out huge, crumpled wads of parchment, some blank, some with five-line music staves hastily scrawled out on them and adorned with notes, with lyrics. They're accompanied by an extra-as-hell feather pen. Then there's a whole assortment of random crap Pat can't even place: twists of fleece and bunches of twigs, a thick cluster of what turns out to be honeycomb wrapped in some waxed paper, four tiny clinking glass ampoules full of something glowing. Some spare extra ukulele strings, and - Pat tries not to think too hard about - some spare extra underclothes. An avocado. Three silver, eight copper, and a handful of buttons.

Pat _sinks_, elbows to knees, face to hands, bent double on the ground.

All that - _all that_, and it's not even enough for a night at the tavern.

  
\-----

  
TO BE CONTINUED in ACT II


	2. Bardic Inspiration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick act II notes:  
\- Remember that the story ends after this chapter! "Chapter" 3 is just some fun non-narrative bonus content!  
\- There's a couple of brief allusions in this chapter to the idea that, potentially, Pat's cat Charles has died, or was maybe never alive at all(??). It's implied in a spooky, macabre, fantasy way, not a tragic or gruesome pet death kind of way, but it felt important for me to warn folks just in case!  
\- I wrote Brian doing a food crime into this chapter as a joke that happened totally on a whim, only to LATER THAT SAME DAY encounter a gif of Brian ACTUALLY DOING THE CRIME IRL. can you believe

ACT II

Bonus Action: Bardic Inspiration

  


> _"First off, I did NOT say 'easy to fool'; I said, 'if you need to pick a patsy, pick Travis.'" -- Trin Pierce, Celebrity Secret Hitler at GenCon 2019_

\-----

All that, and there's _not even enough for a night at the tavern_.

"Fuck!" Brian yells into the quiet of the wood. The yell is not enough. He kicks his leg wildly, half at the ground, half at the air, lands the swing with a hard stomp and follows through with an arm too. He's feeling _dramatic_, okay. This is a hugely, hugely, hugely bad outcome for the given situation. "Fuck," he yells again, less ferociously but no less aggrieved. He squeezes the little bag in his hands like he's throttling it, just for something to do. 

Brian managed to haul himself up out of the stream once it hit a slower, shallower section, checking for damage on his ukulele (blessedly none to the neck or body, though the strings are toast) and then drying his whole shit off with about eight or nine castings of _prestidigitation_ (and god, he hates the way his hair looks when he has to do that instead of using a towel, but what can you do). But then, of course, his immediate second order of business was to flip his newly pilfered bag of holding inside out, because that's what you _do_ with a bag of holding when you have no idea what's inside it, and the results were - 

Unsatisfactory, at best. 

First off, there are just - a _lot_ of freakin' daggers in there. Like, double-digits of daggers. None are as slick and deadly-looking as the one Pat wears at his hip, so Brian can see why that's his favorite, but some are pretty nice: one sporting a heavy marbled stone handle; another, more ornamental, in a dark matte metal with his name etched in, _Patrick Gill_; a set of four petite ones that hook together at the pommels to form something akin to an OP throwing star. A bunch of caltrops, too. Rogues, man. The rest of the stuff is a little more utilitarian (some nondescript vials of oil, long silky coils of black rope complete with grappling hook, a dark cowl, a water skin) or else just totally, wildly inscrutable (there's what looks like a complete, painstakingly reconstructed and preserved skeleton of a cat?? adorned and decorated with tiny, elaborate etchings into the bones and painted here and there with soft muted shades of silver and bronze and deep teal, and what the hell, Patrick). There are a grand total of two silver pieces and twelve copper pieces. 

Brian yells again just thinking about it. That is _less money than he started out with_. And now he's over a mile downstream, it's going to take him an hour or more to make it back to the tavern going slightly-uphill through the mud and the brambles, and he's gonna have to wheedle his way into singing for his supper yet again, except his uke is trashed and he's lost all his _spell components_, eff em ell, doesn't even have anything to show for his efforts, nothing but - 

But the gnawing, gnashing feeling of shame and rejection in his gut, _tiny monstrosity chaotic evil_, growing bigger by the second as the reality of the situation sets in.

Like, they both lied to each other, obviously. Brian's not gonna pretend he's not at fault here, pretend he's not proficient in deception, won't play the victim to Pat's mustache-twirling dastardly scoundrel. (Brian has a _way_ better mustache.) But from his side of the equation, Brian can look back at each individual piece of his own performance, and he knows with no little confidence what was a lie and what was not, and feels the gut-gnawing exacerbate with each tick in the _not_ column, because it's like. A lot of it. Nearly all of it, it turns out, save _Gailbraithe_, plus a sprinkling of lies-of-omission _vis a vis_ his plan to steal the bag-patch (which, he must admit, he's still pretty proud he pulled off there right at the buzzer when everything went to shit, even if it netted him basically nothing). Brian knows exactly how he felt, and how _honestly_ he felt it, when he was zinging snappy banter back and forth with Pat as they walked through the forest and felt it coming easy as breathing, light as air in his bones; or when he was coming his brains out under the expert ministrations of Pat's thick cock and powerful hands, easily the best sex he's had this year and it was barely third base; or when they were running for their lives together and Brian threw himself on the fire and dropped a third-level spell to try to level the playing field because he couldn't stop thinking, not _oh god I've gotta pull out all the stops to save my own ass_, but oh _god, if I'm the reason anything happens to Patrick, I'm gonna wish this thing got me too_. The monstrosity in his gut rakes its claws across the underside of his heart. It's raw, and it's shitty. It's _ real _.

But was it real like that for Pat, too?

Or was _everything..._? 

That's the part it makes Brian ache to even entertain the thought of, and he shifts his focus back to the immediate and infuriating problem of The Bag, because it's easier. God, it's so tempting to just _kick_ the thing across the ground the entire way back to the Many Corners, rather than deigning to carry it. Somehow Brian thinks that might make him feel better. But no, that's certainly not going to speed his trek up at all, and anyway he's not sure what happens to items inside a bag of holding when it gets all shaken up and abused, and he kind of wouldn't want anything to happen to that fancy kitty skeleton because it looked real fragile and precious to Pat and here he is, still _giving a shit about Patrick and his feelings_ and Brian does some defeated noise that's not quite all the way to a yell, this time, gets caught up in the neighborhood of a sigh as he lolls his head back and vocalizes up at the sky. 

"Brian David Gilbert, you sure are a big ol' _chump_," he laments. 

"You said it, not me," answers a voice from behind a nearby rock. 

Brian nearly shoots out of his skin, hands fumbling the bag of holding like a hot potato until he can get a good grip on it again. "Jesus christ," he says.

"Nope, I told you, it's the Raven Queen."

The woman the voice belongs to steps into view, and oh hey, Brian actually knows this voice-haver. She's a twinkling-eyed halfling, dressed all in drapey, artsy black, and along one side of her head, where her hair is shaved down close, there's a semicircular cuff of short, sharp black feathers curved around the upper shell of her ear, a fashion statement and a _holy symbol_ all in one. Brian met Jenna at the Many Corners late last year, where they shared a night of getting _spectacularly_ drunk together, because it was the first time either of them had ever been to Vawksferry & Fields - Brian on a short-lived theatrical tour, Jenna on a short-lived vision quest - and they had both just realized there was absolutely fuck-all else to do here. They don't travel in the same circles, but sometimes if they're in the area their stops overlap, and he likes to catch up with her if he can. He had no idea she was here right now - probably because she's a weird, spooky bitch who likes to lurk behind rocks in the middle of the forest, apparently.

He doesn't say that to her face, though. "Hey, Jenna," is what he says. "What's, uh, what's going on?"

"Dinner!" she says. She holds up a snare, in which she has caught a rabbit, which is now dead. Brian must make a face, because she laughs at him, the way halflings do with their whole self. "Oh, it's been so long since I hung out with someone who's weird about death!" she crows. "That new temple is slow going. Are you headed back into town? We can walk together, at least as far as the main bridge?"

"Sure," says Brian, slowing his pace to match her shorter legs. He very admirably does not cringe when she mentions the bridge.

"Sooo," she presses, "what's earned you the chump moniker this time?" 

And maybe it's because clerics are just inherently easy to talk to, or maybe it's because he's just had a _hell_ of a day, but Brian suddenly gives no shits about how much of this story she knows. "Well, I just got like, pretty bodaciously robbed."

"Oh no, friend!" she says. 

"...While I was actively in the middle of also trying to rob the same guy," Brian finishes, leaning into the dramatic retelling. "And did I mention he's hot?"

"Oh, _boy_."

She grins wickedly, ready for the juicy goss, and Brian gives her an abridged version of the whole dumb thing, even the sex parts. Jenna smiles and frowns and boos at all the appropriate places. Brian forgot how great an audience she is. 

"And so then I turn out the bag and there's just _jack all_ , Jenna, just all these knives - it's like a straight-up _knife museum_ in there, and some more rogue stuff, and the cat thing, and then like - three silver and some change." 

"Wait," she says, "so he didn't even have any more money than you did in the first place?"

"Now she's getting it." 

"How do - Brian, how do two adult men above level three not have one full gold piece between them?" 

"Are you seriously quoting _It Never Rains In Phandolin_ at me right now?"

"It's a _great_ shadowplay and you are a jealous hater," says Jenna. "Look, you know you fucked up, right?"

"Please don't rub it in," Brian groans. He stares down at the bag in his hands, rather than meet her eye. "I can't believe I got so - invested. You never catch feelings for a mark, that's like one-oh-one."

"No, fuckin' - damn it in Her name, Brian, you fucked up when you decided to keep up this stupid ruse the whole time instead of just telling this guy you're into him like a normal person!"

"When I - ?"

"You are _both_ chumps, officially. You obviously like him and he _clearly_ likes you - "

"Jenna - "

" - but neither one of you would just come the fuck out with it, for some dumbass reason, instead of thinking first with your wallet and then with your dick and _then_ with your brain." 

"I feel like you are - grossly oversimplifying things," Brian protests, increasingly weakly. There's - there's no _way_ it's that easy. Is there? 

"Did you actually listen to that story you just told me? Y'all have already saved each other's literal lives _and_ wrecked each other's shop in a picturesque mossy forest grove, and you met _this morning_. Get your head out of your ass." 

Brian's voice has shrunk to a murmur. "He _lied_ to me," he says. 

"Oh, my Goddess. Look, do you like him?"

"...Yes."

"And do you want your stuff back?"

"Yes."

"And like, was the dick good?"

Brian groans. "The dick was _so good, Jenna_ \- "

Her raised-eyebrow head-tilt is enough to cut him off. Brian takes a deep, deep breath or two, trying to process exactly what Jenna seems to have worked out, here, in half the time and with two percent of the effort. "Hoo," he says, inadequately, because like. _Hooo_. It's - a _lot_, is what it is. Especially if she's _right_, which Brian's pretty sure - she _is_. Wowsers, Brian could never be a cleric. 

They walk a bit further down the path. They're still moving toward town, toward the tavern, but, Brian realizes - "I don't even know where he is," he says at last. "He was clearly trying to make a getaway by shoving me in the stream, and homeboy is _fast_. He could be miles from here by now."

Jenna sighs a little and rolls her eyes. "Well, lucky for you," she says with no small amount of reluctance, "I've got the juice to use _sending_ today."

Brian truly perks up for the first time in the whole business. "Oh my god, really? Yes! Okay, yes." Jenna's been Brian's _sending_ proxy a number of times before, reaching out to Laura as she adventures across the land or Jonah off in Baldur's Gate. It's handy as hell, and Brian can't think of a better use for it than right now.

"You could learn this spell, you know. It's not like, divine-only, it's pretty open source."

"But then I wouldn't have an excuse to talk to _you_," Brian says sweetly.

"Oh for crying out loud. Look, you know how it works, I've never met the guy."

"Thankfully I've got a bunch of his stuff," says Brian. He fidgets, a little, on the bag, and finally decides to reach in and drag out the fancy cat skeleton. It seems like the most personal of the bag's random contents, and anyway he figures spooky Jenna will really, really like it, which might get him a couple brownie points.

He's right. "Oooh, look at him!" she says delightedly. She cradles it, a little, almost like one would hold an actual alive cat, and it is so dang weird that Brian almost has to look away. "He's so cute. He says his name is Charles." 

"Nope."

"Okay, okay, I've got some definite vibes," Jenna relents, returning the skeleton. 

"Here - this too," says Brian. He crouches down, scratches at his sock for a little emergency spell-component action, and with the little pill of fleece he pulls away Brian casts _minor illusion_, conjuring as accurate an image of Pat's face as his memory can muster, floating between his palms. He squints at it and readjusts, a little, sculpting his beard better, setting his eyes a little further apart.

"Oh! He _is_ cute," says Jenna. "Good hair." Brian nods reluctantly. "Excellent. All right, remember you've got twenty-five words, so come up with something good and lock it in before I cast it." She rests her fingertips tentatively to the fan of feathers ringing her right ear.

"Okay. Okay." Brian focuses up, because being _verbally frugal_ has never exactly been his strong suit. "Um. _Hey, it's Gailbraithe_," he starts.

"Ew, _Gailbraithe_? You conveniently omitted that part of the story, you monster."

"What!" Brian balks. "Gailbraithe is my _good_ fake name. It's like Gilbert, but, y'know, the sexy version."

Jenna says, "It's not." 

"Uuugh, okay, I told him my real name anyway. _Hey, it's Brian_," he amends. "Uh, okay... _No hard feelings._ ...Um. _Let's just_...or, like, _Could we just meet back up, and trade back? Where's...good...for you?_" Brian peters out, awkwardly. Maybe brevity is not going to be the issue here, after all. 

Jenna, for all the dragging she's put him through, doesn't press the issue, goes a little softer around her edgy all-black edges. "You still have - " she does a splash of mental math - "six more words, if you want. Are you sure that's good?" 

Is Brian sure?

The tiny monstrosity in Brian's gut that Jenna seems to have held at bay up till now makes its presence known again, and it's all the nastier for its time in dormancy. Brian's putting a lot of faith in Jenna's read of the situation. Probably, he realizes, because he _wants_ it to be the right read, wants it to be just as raw and shitty and real for Pat as it is for him, because god wouldn't that be _something_? But if Brian's gonna stop being an idiot about this situation once and for all he's gotta start now, and he's gotta entertain the possibility that Pat really was lying about - about _everything_. Which means it's better to keep this as lowkey, low-stakes, transactional as possible, just. Just in case. 

"Uh - yeah," Brian says. "It's - it gets weird coming from you instead of straight from me, anyway. The _emotional nuance_ is _muddied_." He tilts his voice pretentious, does an over-the-top bard-ass arm flourish for emphasis, hiding in it. "Better to keep it simple."

"You got it, friend," says Jenna. She presses her fingers harder against her ear cuff, till Brian can see the copper gleaming out from under the feathers, and parrots the whole thing back. "_Hey, it's Brian. No hard feelings - _" She glances at him for guidance and he nods, mouthing along with her. "_Could we just meet back up and trade back? Where's good for you?_" Brian gives a more decisive nod, and a thumbs-up. Cool.

Jenna takes a deep wild breath and grins a rictus of sheer glee. "_P.S. the dick was good!!!_"

"JENNA!" Fucking hell. Brian can feel the hot roil of his whole face turning beet red. He can't believe she's done this. "Oh my _goddd._"

She's absolutely cackling, of course, her full body halfling laugh. "Oh, man, you should never have given me so much power," she says. "_Mua ha ha._"

"How could you," says Brian. "We are not friends, never again, revoked, denied, canceled, oh my _god_ what if he _doesn't answer now_ \- "

But Jenna's laughter cuts off abruptly, and she stills, hand to her ear, gaze fixed somewhere high above her. "Oh! He's responding!" she says. "Okay, okay, here we - _Hey, Gailbraithe._ Okay, that is definitive proof right there." She keeps relaying: "_Um, I'm back at the Many Corners. Nowhere else to really go._ Oooh, Bri, he sounds sorry. Like, sorry apologetic but also _sorry-ass_, just real pathetic. You did a number on 'im."

"Stop editorializing!" 

"_Come back, and we'll trade_ ." She falls silent, and they kind of make the same face at each other - _is that it_ ? But then she pricks up again, and Brian watches as she receives the message, goes through it all before she can tell it back to him, has a li'l face-journey, oh please just spit it out already - " _I'm so sorry. I wish I'd_ \- and then it cuts off. That's twenty-five, Brian. Dang, I can't believe it counted that _um._"

It doesn't matter that it cuts off. Brian's heart gives a big ol' throb, and it cold-clocks the evil gnawing down below. The monstrosity goes down for the count, and when it starts seeing those little stars swirling around its head, those are the sparks of hope that Brian's finally allowing to creep up into his chest, baybee, and wow does he hate this metaphor now but that doesn't matter either.

Brian may actually be able to fix this.

\-----

Pat hopes he's actually able to fix this. 

God, it'd be nice if he thought the drink was gonna help. 

In all fairness, it's - a kindness, that he's having a drink in the first place. Pat, it turns out, realized pretty quickly that he was not gonna be able to bring himself to spend Brian's money, which means he's effectively gone from broke to _flat_ broke. But as he slunk back into the Many Corners - which was popping off already, even well before two p.m., halflings get _nasty_ on it - it's possible that he looked so shellshocked and pitiful that it was...noticeable to others, most specifically that nice monk guy Pat saw earlier, has seen around here maybe once or twice before. The firbolg, all soft edges and pale muted blues and greys, introduced himself as Clayton, and slid Pat a tall, frothing glass of a dark ale. 

"On me," he said, kindly. "If you want." He very generously did not comment on the State of Pat, but Pat figures he didn't really need to, huh.

"I...do want," Pat had said. "Unfortunately. Thanks, dude."

"Any time."

Pat doesn't drink often, and the ale is a strong halfling brew, but from the way his knee is still bouncing under the bar, it's still not accomplishing much if Pat's desired goal is to _take the edge off._ Because about a third of the way into downing the drink, staring into the bottom of the glass like there might be some kind _any kind_ of answer to be found in there, his head and, fuck, his heart still reeling from the past four hours - 

That's when he got the message. 

Pat's not sure what caught him more off-guard - being blindsided by the _sending_ out of nowhere, something he's only ever encountered once or twice as a Non-Magic-Using Boy, or the friendly but totally unknown woman's voice starting off _Hey, it's Brian_. Pat had - Pat had been solidly halfway into a panic spiral convincing himself he'd possibly never hear from Brian again, _ever,_ okay, only for the reality to be that it took about thirty minutes. He'd almost be, like, relieved, if the contents of the message hadn't promptly knocked him sideways into a second, entirely different panic spiral. 

Pat's worked hard, in his lifestyle, to bulk up his proficiency in insight, but hearing Brian's words in someone else's voice, filtered through this proxy, has left the whole thing just completely fucking inscrutable. Pat replays the message at least three times through his own head before he can drum up a response, trying to transpose it back into Brian's cadence, his bard-ass voice twisting around the syllables all coy and confident, but it just sounds... Flat. Sincere, but so surface-level that it lowkey pains Pat to think about, because - is it just that it's coming from someone else, who isn't Brian, who can't nail his nuance, his flair, his heart? Or is Brian really only sparing Pat the bare minimum of himself, because he - because - 

Pat _really_ wishes he could afford another drink. 

He does everything he can to pour his own self back into the response, even though he knows it'll only get _sent_ to this stranger woman and Brian won't be able to hear him, either. Gives him just - the most straightforward and honest apology he can wring out. Gives him _Gailbraithe_, grinning morosely to himself, just a little. Trails off, at the end: "_I wish I'd just - been a normal person, when we met, maybe we could have,_ oh, well, the message is probably over now, isn't it." Crap. Well, hell, maybe that's for the best. Pat clutches at his glass of beer, trying to quell the tremble in his wrist, and takes another long, deep swig. That's it, then.

Now he just...waits?

Fuck.

Pat isn't used to being like - impatient. He does stakeouts, does long cons, can sit in a tree in someone's yard for hours without moving just to wait till the moment is right. But sitting in the Many Corners tavern waiting for the moment when Brian David Gilbert walks through that door is _destroying_ him, like sandpaper underneath his skin, rubbing outward from the inside. (And that's just focusing on _when_; Pat can't even bring himself to entertain the possibility of _if_. Fuck, shit, _piss_.) He finishes the beer and his hands are still taptaptapping on the outside of the glass. He carefully checks, for the umpteenth time, the straps on Brian's bag, making sure he didn't damage anything too too badly in the snatch of it. He very deliberately does not look back over at the kind and pitying firbolg three seats down along the bar. Damn, he wishes nobody could see him like this.

(Oh. Maybe Pat should _hide_. God, it sounds like such a headass rogue thing to say, but wouldn't it be nice, to just disappear for a second, sink into his comfort zone of shadow skulking? And that way when Brian shows up Pat can get a good look at him first without being seen, suss out anything he can, the good good insights that the second-hand message obfuscated the shit out of, if Pat's really ruined the whole damn thing or if maybe just _maybe_ Brian's in anywhere near as deep as Pat is because what, did Pat say two inches, earlier? He maybe meant - two _miles_ \- )

There's that spiral, again, and Pat loses twenty minutes and suddenly it's too late to hide, because - 

Because.

The door swings open, and there are two people silhouetted in the frame, and only one of them is halfling height, and the other one - dips down, gives the halfling a hug and a little air-cheek-kiss, but then a more serious companionable clap on the shoulder, tight deep eye contact, and then the halfling leaves, and in walks Brian, peacock-green and mustachio'd and - Pat catches himself thinking the word _resplendent._ Sure, why the hell not. Brian casts his gaze around for a second before he sees Pat, and Pat has just enough time in that second to read Brian's face as sort of - defeated, _crestfallen_ one might almost say, until their eyes meet and all the sandpaper under Pat's skin melts and dissipates away with Brian's smile.

God, Brian's _smiling_, and _fuck_ does it feel good being the thing that put it there. 

Pat rises from his bar stool, moves to cross to him, but Brian's already standing and moves quicker and they meet way more than halfway. Pat wants to - god there is already _so much_ he wants - but more than anything, what he wants is to not fuck this up any worse than he already has. His brain scrambles for something to say, the _right_ thing to say. He's an idiot; of course Brian, the bard, who uses his words for a _living_, would beat him to the punch.

Brian says, "Okay, seriously, when do you ever even _use_ that many knives?" and punctuates by shoving Pat's bag of holding back into his hands.

"Uh, well, first of all," Pat says, "most of them are _daggers_," and he takes his bag, clumsily hands Brian's back to him too, doesn't even try not to grin, "they're symmetrical, y'know, it's, a knife usually just has the one cutting edge, a dagger is better for, for throwing or stabbing - "

"Oh, yep, those two very important everyday activities."

"You just have a whole-ass avocado in there, dude."

"Well, now, hang on - "

"Like, I'm assuming the rest of the random junk in here is stuff you need for, for casting spells, but what the hell spell - "

"It's the incredibly powerful sixth-level spell _eat lunch_," says Brian, tone acidic but demeanor anything but. "Which I was getting around to casting, but then my afternoon got a little derailed on account of I got knocked off a bridge."

Fuck - Pat's stomach full-on _turns_ with guilt. But Brian, maintaining eye contact with him the entire time, digs said avocado out of his bag and holds it to his mouth and - fucking bites into the whole dang thing like it's an apple, skin and all, and the guilt gets almost completely displaced by the laugh that bubbles up out of Pat uncontrollably at how beautifully, disarmingly _extra_ the man in front of him can be. He laughs for what feels like a straight minute, eyes still locked on Brian's as he grimaces through finishing the bite and spits the rind of it out onto the floor. 

God, that better be all of it. 

Pat kisses him. 

He throws his arms over Brian's shoulders and tugs him close and kisses him, food crimes and all, and in his grasp Brian tenses and then relaxes, bone-deep, lets his bag drop to his side so his free hand can slide up Pat's back, underneath the jacket, painted nails scratching softly at his spine through his tunic. It's not too deep or too nasty, it's definitely Many Corners-appropriate, but it's still a long, sweet-ass time before they come up for air.

"I'm so _fucking_ sorry," Pat says, as deeply and emphatically as he can manage, clutching tight to Brian's shoulders. 

"I'm sorry too," Brian murmurs into the skin of Pat's neck. "God, I can't believe - this was so stupid."

"It was _hugely_ stupid!" says Pat. "I've been - I've been having a really bad day."

"Me too," says Brian. He lifts back from Pat, a little, not out of the circle of his arms in any way, but enough to see his face, again. "But I think it's, um. It's getting a lot better." He's smiling, soft and bright, and Pat is _three_ miles deep. 

But also. "I'm still never gonna live that bridge thing down, am I."

"Not for the rest of your got-damn life, Pat Gill." 

Pat falters, brow furrowed, for the two seconds it takes his brain to jump from _How does he know my - ?_ to _oh, duh, he went through all of your stuff_, and by that point Brian has him by the wrist and is tugging him back to the bar. 

They sit, two seats down from Clayton, who gives Pat a cheery thumbs-up. They eat the rest of Brian's ruined avocado, mashed onto some of the seed-riddled complimentary bar crackers, and it almost counts as a lunch, for two people as broke as they are. Pat tugs his jacket off and presses the bag back to its spot, lets it knit itself into the patch again, puts it back on; Brian rebuckles all the straps to his own bag back around his left hip, then does a cute little shimmy so it jingles and settles into place. He finds that spare set of ukulele strings and lays them out on the bar along with his instrument, starts in on re-stringing with deft and practiced handiwork that even max-dex Pat is suitably impressed with.

"It - it didn't get too damaged, did it?" says Pat. "In the fall?"

"Lucky for you, no," says Brian, raising his eyebrow. "I tried to prioritize it when I hit, so instead I just gotta big ol' bruise on my ass." Brian pulls a tiny knife from inside his vest and uses it to neatly snip the strings now that he's loosened them. "The Ring of Evasion helped, though." He waggles his fingers at Pat, briefly, the red and gold band catching in the light.

"Helped you - how? Helped you _evade_ hitting the water?"

"Magic's crazy, yo. But the strings are shot from getting wet. Just gotta fix 'er up."

Pat feels - guilty, again. Still. He averts his gaze a little, taps his fingers on the bartop as Brian keeps working. "We should get you a better knife than that," he says instead. "I know - places. Or even just take one of mine, I guess, but better to get you one that you feel good about, the right size and, and weight, for you - "

"Patrick, please," says Brian, rolling his eyes. "I don't need a stabbin'-people knife. I'm not an adventurer, I don't fight people." 

"You could, though," Pat says. "If - if you needed to, I mean, obviously. Just in case. You've got a good eye for it. Good hand." Pat reaches over and curves his left hand over Brian's left hand where it's knotting the string. His hands are - smaller, than Pat's, and a degree or two more delicate, musician's hands, but Pat can see how steady they are, how well they'd heft a proper dagger. His touch stills Brian's movements, and Brian lifts his gaze from the instrument to meet Pat's, just a little bit askance, his lower lip loose and red and his eyes fathomlessly dark. He shifts his hand underneath Pat's so his knuckles roll slow, slow across Pat's palm.

Pat smirks, finishes, "I'd just hate to see you get your face ripped off by a giant raccoon."

"Welp," says Brian, "that makes two of us." 

He knows Brian can feel him and see him looking at his mouth, and he tightens his hand around Brian's, just a little, cants his body in closer between their bar stools, and _is_ it too soon to kiss him again or is that just like, a thing they can _do_ now, whenever they feel like it, because that is gonna _rule_ and also be _super distracting_ and make it real hard to get anything - 

"_Hail and well met, Many Corners!_"

Pat and Brian jolt apart in alarm as the door to the tavern bursts open and the large, exuberant man who did the bursting strides in. 

Pat runs a split-second analysis. He's actually not that big, size-wise, really, but he's wearing hefty, gleaming half-plate armor in a hipstery rose-gold hue and that plus the sheer force of his personality makes him look way bigger. Human, Pat thinks, but there's _something_ in his bone structure, his bearded jaw and bandy legs, that belies something else, and Pat decides fairly quickly that he must be like the _tiniest_ bit orcish, too, one-eighth or less. He's got a longsword on his belt and swaths of vibrant purple streaking through his hair and he is just, like, so happy to be here, or something. Wow, who the hell is this guy. 

"Barkeep!" the newcomer shouts jovially. "I'd like to get everyone a round of your favorite local ale, on me!" The dozen or so halflings-and-friends in the place give a surprised, thankful cheer, but Pat - 

\- oh, and Brian's already squeezing back at his hand before Pat can even get there, because they've had the same _exact_ thought - 

_this clown's got **coin**. _

They are gonna absolutely fuckin' roll this guy. 

Brian rises from his bar stool, instantly, and Pat moves to follow but Brian just gives the tiniest shake of his head, leans in close and whispers "_Stay right here, babe_," echoes the request with a firm _don't-move_ press of his hand into the edge of Pat's hip as he goes. Oh, that's actually a damn smart move, keeping them separated from each other rather than having the mark identify them as working together, and just - hell yes, it means Brian's got a _plan_ . Pat didn't quite get all of _that_ in their fun little pretend-telepathic moment of co-conspiracy, here, and he's nervous, but also incredibly optimistic because - because despite literally all of the other events of the past five hours, Pat _trusts_ him. Pat feels confident that Brian knows exactly what he's doing. 

Pat, quite frankly, can't wait to watch.

It's slightly easier said than done, because Brian just scoops up his ukulele and is already moving in the direction of the armored guy, effortlessly guessing the exact low-slung table he's going to end up sitting at and planting himself there, too, confident and sociable and not suspicious at all. They're decently in Pat's peripheral vision - even if he's gotta fully pretend not to look, he can still see if he turns sort of surreptitiously and cheats out from the bar toward the tavern proper - but they're _ju-ust_ within earshot, and only if Pat listens in very, very closely.

Well, or, if they're being loud, which they sort of super are, at least to start. "Hey there!" Brian chirps, all sweet lilt and bright golden smile. "Thanks for the drink! My name's Gailbraithe, what's yours?" 

"I'm Travis!" the guy says. "It's so nice to meet you!" 

They shake hands, and Pat absolutely notices the way Brian's grip lingers on Travis, just softly, just a little. It's - that's okay, Pat's _not_ jealous, of the way Brian's keeping his eyes warm and wide and his attention focused, cocking his shoulders just-so in body language that screams _available_, laughing and clinking glasses with Travis as they exchange pleasantries about the ale. Pat knows that Brian's m.o. is just - oozing charisma at all times, and the longer he watches them the more impressed he actually is. God, the very _idea_ of just plopping yourself down at someone else's table in a tavern like you belong there sets Pat's teeth on edge with anxiety, but Brian can do it and _did_ do it like it was _nothing_. It probably helps, Pat figures, to look - like Brian does, to be able to _make_ yourself look like Brian does, handsome and bubbly and inviting, but like, on _purpose_, you know, Pat can tell because he knows better but this guy - even though, Pat snorts a little, Travis does not scan as anything but totally straight - gets sucked right up into Brian's orbit. He's telling Brian a little about an ogre who's said to roam these parts, Pat catches, who's apparently in need of vanquishing, which is why Travis is here, oh god he's a paladin because of _course_ he is, and Brian is hanging on every word of his story, and Travis is eating it up, and Brian is grinning and plucking at his freshly re-strung ukulele and saying to Travis _oh, now, that's a quest you could really write a song about!_ and pouring on the charm like it's his job.

Which, like, it _is_ his job, Pat figures - same as Pat's job is lurking and lifting, sneaking silent and disappearing into the palest of shadows, Brian's job is - shining like a spotlight. Brian's job is - resting his hand gently on the back of Travis's arm, and making some sweet joke that leaves Travis guffawing heartily, and Pat's _not_ jealous, okay, even if that is the _exact same move_ Brian played on him earlier, because - 

Oh. 

It - it sinks like a stone, warm and heavy and grounding, down into a sweet little hollow at the base of Pat's spine. Because like, if you were to play it back, somehow, Pat and Brian's meet-cute versus Brian deploying identical tactics on Travis, right now, Pat could - Pat can tell, even as they hit all the same beats, that they're _not_ identical, that one is different. You just have to know what to look for, look real close - be proficient in insight, maybe - but you can see that one came more naturally, landed harder. That one was real.

That the difference is, on Pat it was _real_. 

Pat is so glad he has a glass that's still half-full of beer right now because he desperately needs something in which to hide his wide, overwhelmed grin. 

God, who was he really gonna be jealous of here, anyway, _this_ guy? The only thing Pat's jealous of is his ability to freely spend money on total strangers. Travis is - possibly about as close as Pat has ever seen to a perfect mark. He's alone. He's shiny and conspicuous. He's boisterous and just a little bit blowhardy. He's smiling as he tosses his gold around in the form of a bar-wide round of drinks. (Bonus points: He's instantly taken with Brian, and he hasn't even noticed Pat, which is _exactly_ how that equation is supposed to look.) Still, he's just above-board enough to not be like, suspiciously too-good-to-be-true: he's obviously got decent skill with that sword at his waist but doesn't feel the need to be braggadocious about it, and he's engaging in what looks like a reasonably intelligent and normal conversation with Brian rather than running his mouth about himself like a _total_ buffoon. He's just a _regular_ buffoon. It's so fucking choice. 

Pat cannot wait to get his and Brian's itchy little fingers all over this guy's travel pack and rustle up the rest of his gold. That little zing between them earlier that kickstarted this whole thing was _thrilling_, and the only thing that's gonna be more thrilling is when Brian - gorgeous, shrewd, pinpoint-perfect Brian, his warm brown hair catching the sunlight through the windows, his laughter carrying over the bar noise to Pat's ear, his elegant hands gesturing animatedly - god, Pat wants to sigh with it, he is one whole idiot for this kid - when Brian actually lets him in on the scheme. 

"Oh, me too!" says Brian, louder than Pat is expecting, "only I'm not the - the _middlest_, oh but I love that, no, I'm youngest. It's my sister Laura and my brother, _Patrick_."

Pat chokes, just a little, on his ale. Okay, so maybe he's been kind of, kind of _distracted_, and has been watching Brian weave his radiant web and not actually focusing on what he's really saying or doing, underneath it all. Sue him, it's _fresh_, okay. He leans on the bar with one elbow, a little, makes like maybe he'll flag the barkeep down but then just doesn't, uses the motion to get a more solid look at the two of them. Travis is talking some more about his siblings, and Brian is close-lipped smiling out from under the flop of his hat and fidgeting with his hands on the tabletop and he's holding - a coaster? from his glass? Only - Pat's like, ninety-nine percent sure the underside of the coasters here isn't usually a flashy, Brian-branded robin's egg blue. Pat keeps his eye trained as Brian spins and fidgets it again, watches, tracks -

Holy shit, there's a _pattern_ to it, and it's a pattern Pat recognizes. A language Pat absolutely speaks. 

While Travis is talking, snatches of sentences drifting Pat's way but still only mostly-audible in the busy bar, Pat stares at the place where Brian is flicking and tapping the coaster against the table, rapid-fire and fidgety but - to Pat, at least - conspicuously precise. He counts five, then a pause, then nine - no, ten. Okay. Pat strains and focuses to really hear Brian talk on his turn.

"Well, I've gotten myself into a couple of scrapes," Brian says. "There's just an awful lot going on in the woods around here. For such a small town."

"I know!" Travis agrees. "When I heard about the ogre, I was like, shook," but Pat's not listening to him anymore, he's running Brian's words back through his head and counting, translating. Five words in, _into_, then ten words after that, _woods_. Into woods. Yeah, that tracks. And what else, Brian?

Brian's hands fly through more coded rhythms, and he angles his body a little so Pat has a better line of sight to read his lips, god he's good. It's amazing how Brian can make it look so casual, like a nervous tic or like he's knocking out something musical. No wonder he was able to deceive Pat just as slick as Pat deceived him. Pat pays rapt attention - "Never know when I'll get struck with inspiration! It's funny what ideas will just - like - y'know - stick with you. I think I'm really close to something." Pat tries not to laugh as Brian fumbles with filler words to make the middle bit line up, countwise - _I'll - stick - close_. 

"Well, tag along if you like! The more the merrier!" says Travis. 

Oh. Oh, _good_ plan, Brian, _ hell _ yeah. The flickering coaster confirms it - _I'll stick close_ is followed up with _pretend help _, then _you follow secret_, then _jumping him there_. The rhythms die off, then, and Pat finishes up his beer, tries to get his head into game mode now. It sounds like Travis is planning to leave soon, now with Brian in tow, so with any luck they're only an hour or two out from actually like, being able to afford a place to stay tonight. And maybe, y'know, _dinner_ or something. It's possible that Pat would really like to be able to have a nice dinner with Brian. 

Pat's almost tuned out, satisfied that their plan is coming together and he knows his part in it, when he catches the flash of blue again out of the corner of his eye. Five, fifteen, twelve, ten - 

"Well, I think a bed in this tavern runs about five gold," Brian says. "But they've been kind enough to put me up for less, sometimes. Hopefully if I get up on stage later then I won't have to twist anyone's arm too hard."

Pat fumbles his (_thankfully empty_) glass over onto the bartop and scrambles to grab it before it makes too much more noise. One or two of the halflings sitting nearest him chuckle at his party foul, and when he risks a glance across at Clayton he's met with a raised eyebrow but nothing more pressing. He _doesn't_ risk a glance over at Brian and Travis's table, but he doesn't need to to feel the absolute _waves_ of smugness radiating from Brian. Motherfucker. Pat waves a little apology to the bartender and slides the glass a few feet away from himself, hunching over the bar, keeping his hair hung low across his face. The moment, blessedly, passes.

"Welp!" Travis barks. "I'm gonna excuse myself to the gentlemen's ah-_ facilities _ for a moment, and then once I settle the tab I feel like we can get going! Better to catch a monster unawares when the daylight is on your side, know what I mean?"

Brian gives a perfectly performed fake gasp of surprise. "Oh! Wow, so soon, okay!" Travis is rising from the table and Brian scrambles to, too, slinging his ukulele back over his shoulder and brushing nonexistent dust from the thighs of his shorts. "Yeah! I'll settle up, too, and then, uh, then we're off! Questing! Wow!" 

Travis clanks out the front door to the outhouse, and as soon as he's out of sight, Pat _ beelines _ it for Brian, who has instantly dropped the sweet flustered young bard routine and is grinning devilishly at him. 

"You little _shit_," Pat hisses. He swats Brian in the thigh, right where his purse is, and it jangles noisily and Brian laughs.

"Yeah, sorry," he says, "there was an opportunity there and I, I took it - "

"No, not that," says Pat. "Well, yes, that, _god_, but not - You speak thieves' cant."

"Ma-aybe."

"After I _explicitly_ asked if you did, when we first met, and you acted like you had no idea what I was doing." 

Pat _knew_ his intuitions hadn't been wrong on that one. Brian introduced himself as Gailbraithe, and shook Pat's hand, and into their handshake Pat scuffed a secret, questioning symbol into the vulnerable inside of Brian's wrist, a universal sign. Brian reacted like Pat was shaking his hand like a weirdo, which is the way most people who don't speak thieves' cant react. But now, the smile on Brian's face is a coy, clever echo of his _whoops-you-caught-me_ smile he flashed as he was stealing Pat's bag of holding, and regrettably, it just makes his dumb mouth look even more kissable, now, mustache and all. 

Brian tilts his shoulders in an oh-so-casual shrug. "Well, you need to keep _some_ secrets," he says. "Just only from the right people." 

Pat doesn't need Brian's little eyebrow raise to know the words for the callback they are.

Pat's heart - does a little something, okay, to not be a person Brian has to keep secrets from, now.

"It's a decent plan, though, right?" he adds, much more genuine. "Me talkin', you stalkin'?"

"It's a great plan," Pat agrees. "Looking forward to makin' it real." He leans in closer to Brian's ear, and adds, "Both of them," letting his voice go low, touching Brian's thigh again. Brian slides a hand through Pat's hair, just a little, and then comes down with his own swat against Pat's ass. 

"Go on, duck out while you can," Brian says, hushed and conspiratorial even as he's laughing again. "Find you a good ol' hiding spot." 

"Roger," says Pat, and he disengages himself from Brian and makes for the door. He exits, it turns out, right as Travis is re-entering, and they give each other the awkward dude-bro nod, and Pat definitely does not intentionally shoulder-brush him to try to analyze his money-pouch situation, because that would be way too obvious, but boy oh boy is the temptation ever there.

Instead, Pat glories in his opportunity to finally, finally act on his earlier impulse to _hide_. He scours the area surrounding the tavern as quickly as he can, pinpointing the optimal place - has to be able to see the tavern door without being seen, hopefully along the right path that Travis is going to lead them down, needs at least one additional place to hop to as he follows - and ends up positioned casually between two horses that are hitched to a post outside, with a big bunch of bushes on deck as option B. Pat figures if Travis had a horse it'd just be the one, and would be way more ostentatious than either of these sad sacks; and as it is, one of the horses is almost the _exact_ shade of grey as his tunic, and if he tugs off his jacket for a second and flips his hood up...

Travis and Brian come bustling out of the Many Corners, and Pat leans into his stealth expertise, stands motionless, and tracks their movements as they go. God, he _loves_ a bastard in plate-mail, the subtle unavoidable _clink_ is a noise Pat's ears have long been trained to prick to, and that plus the way Brian keeps chatting animatedly as they stroll down a northward path means Pat barely even has to look at them to know exactly where they are at all times. As they progress, Pat slinks swiftly to those bushes to keep pace with them, then gives them a little bit of a headstart, now that he can see better, out across the fields. Brian's flashy blue-green and Travis's gleaming rose-gold are just, god, so visible in the warm afternoon sun. If they're trying to sneak up on anything they are fresh outta luck. 

So Travis leads onward _into woods_, and Brian _sticks close_, and Pat _follows secret_. They cross into the treeline, then back over the infamous fucking bridge (Pat, in a moment of feeling roguey and extra, scales upside-down _under_ the bridge - look, it's the best way for him to not be seen, okay!), heading further north. If Travis has any indication that Brian's intentions are less than pure, or that Pat is even there at all, he doesn't show it, and meanwhile Pat can hear Brian plucking out a couple of half-assed little tunes on his ukulele, narrating their trek in, again - Pat's _not_ jealous - much the same way he explained his raccoon predicament to Pat earlier this morning. Travis sings along, here and there; he's got a decent voice, but never seems to land in the right meter. 

Come to think of it, the route they're taking is - remarkably fuckin' similar to the way they pursued the raccoon, at least for a little bit. As Travis leads them off the path, Pat finds himself recognizing jagged little rock-hills and lower, more voluminous trees as hiding spots his brain already alerted him to once before today. Which is rad, because he can run even more on autopilot than before, but also like... Suspicious. His rogue sense are a-tinglin'. 

"Okay," Brian says, affecting a whisper but still god, just, _so_ loud, "so like, I don't do much adventuring, I've never seen an ogre before. They're like, real big?"

"Pretty big," says Travis, "yeah, I think so."

"You think?"

"_We-ell_," he says, "I've not ever really come up upon one either. It's a learning experience!"

"Hoo!" manages Brian. Pat can hear - oh god, yeah - the genuine note of panic in his voice. 

"But I'm sure it won't be that bad. We're gonna get the drop on 'im!" Their pace has slowed, now - they're not traveling to a destination, but rather exploring a vague area. This is it, then. 

"Uhh, you," Brian corrects, nervous. "You're gonna get the drop on him, I'm gonna - record for posterity!" He _jang-a-langs_ on his ukulele for emphasis, loudly. They are getting the drop on absolutely no one. "What rhymes with _ogre_, anyway? Rogue-er? Like, more rogue than?"

_I wish every part of this were rogue-er than it is right now_, Pat thinks to himself from behind a curve of rocky hillside, just out of sight.

They wander in the same, fairly small radius for another two or three minutes. Pat adjusts his hiding place, actually makes his way up the backside of that rocky hill, gets a bit of a higher ground vantage point where he can keep an eye on them through the trees. He's not sure what the move is, now - is Brian gonna signal him, again, the best time to fuckin'...deploy? Is he supposed to telegraph his move to Brian first? Now seems like - the moment they've been waiting for, really, now that they're alone in the woods and not pushing forward too hard, and Travis and Brian have finally had the good sense to fall relatively quiet but the paladin seems distracted, keeps muttering along the lines of _it's just gotta be around here somewhere_... and rattling his sword, which he has drawn and which seems to be glowing faintly. 

Pat drums his fingers against the hilt of his own dagger, fidgety. It's - darker, in this deeper part of the woods, there's a lot of tree cover and it's getting later in the day, and the shadows that hide him so mercifully can also hide. Other things. Spookier things that Pat still doesn't feel that great about.

And then oh god, it all happens so fast.

Through the white noise of the forest, Pat hears _something_ that sounds so, so much like the crunch of a breaking bone, but pitch-shifted deeper and lower and _bigger_. It takes just that split-second of hearing it to realize that he is hearing it _again_, for the second time today; the first time was the last time they were in this stretch of the forest, in pursuit of a raccoon, and Pat had said _Do you hear that_ but Brian said _No_ and nothing came of it, there wasn't anything there, except this time there is absolutely something the _fuck_ there and as Pat watches a huge lumbering grey-fleshed _mass_ stumbles through the trees and is gunning straight for.

For Brian. Beautiful, soft-armored, musical Brian, and if Pat were smarter about it he'd be silent, deadly, precise, but Pat's had two beers and a _ really _ emotional day and Pat is one whole idiot for Brian David Gilbert so he just.

Yells.

"_Brian!_" he screams, and his dagger is flying from his hand in an instant, and it strikes true, brilliant and silver, into the wrist of the hand holding the greatclub that is swinging straight for Brian's head, chucks it just enough to give the monster pause and save Brian's hide, but now all three of them - Travis, Brian, and Fuck-Ugly - are staring straight up at Pat's hiding spot, his cover completely blown, the jig entirely up.

"Who's Brian?" Travis says. "I thought your name was Gailbraithe!"

Oops. That too.

"Oh my god _shut up_!" yells Brian, and he scrambles out of the way, pushing at Travis's broad stupid chest to take him with him, as the ogre swings again.

The two of them make a hair's-breadth dodge, and Pat takes the beat to skid down the side of the hill, landing about fifty feet from them to the ogre's left. He bites his lip, snaps his finger, watches as the dagger dislodges itself from the ogre's doughy flesh with a sickening lurch before whizzing through the air back to his waiting hand. Catches it, but clumsily, god he's gonna have to be better than that. The ogre oscillates its big, stupid head, not quite sure whether to go for Pat or the others.

"You reveal yourself at last, foul monster!" booms Travis. "Very well! No longer shall you ravage the forests of this fair realm! Come at me bro!!" He has, Pat notices, at least put himself between the monster and Brian's squishy ass, and is brandishing his sword in what Pat is sure he thinks is a menacing way. God, Pat almost wants to like this guy, his heart seems like it's in the right place, but what the _fuck_ does he think he's doing.

Well, what he's doing is drawing the ogre's attention, which like. Okay, that's not bad, Pat will take that. While the monster is distracted, going in for another strike which Travis manages to parry with his radiant sword, Pat _books it_ to a nearby fatty oak tree, pivoting around behind it to hide again. From here, he can finally get a good look at the monster. It's _huge_ \- listen, Pat _has_ seen an ogre before, once or twice, and this might be the biggest one he's seen. Fuck. It's almost nine feet tall, and proportionately thick and nasty all through its limbs and its trunk, fleshy grey skin soft but impossibly thick, its undersized head bobbing around on absolutely massive shoulders. Pat thinks he got a decent sneak attack in on its wrist just now, but it's gonna take plenty more hits where that came from to get this thing down for the count. 

God, and he can't see Brian from this angle, with the tree and the monster between the two of them, can only listen and hope that the bright little gasps and yelps he hears in Brian's voice are only of alarm, of panic and the scrambling rush of the sudden combat, and not of _pain_ because _if anything happens to Brian_ \- 

Pat sprints from behind the tree, strafing around the back of the monster, praying there's another tree or rock or something at the other end of his move that he can hide behind again, and as he goes he zips the dagger back toward it, this time against the shoulder of its club arm. His aim is good, but he must hit just the _ thickest _ part of its nasty hide, and it only sticks for a second or so before tumbling back to the ground. Pat waits till he's almost-almost at his next hiding place and then snaps it back again, catching it from the air just as he disappears out of sight. 

"_Fuck off_," the ogre grumbles, its voice like two rocks scraping together at the bottom of a well. "_My forest now._" There's that sickening bone-crunch again -_ that's what those jagged pieces sticking out of that club are,_ Pat realizes, _they're **bones**_ \- and this time it's paired with a sound like wrenching metal and Travis grunting loudly in pain. Fuck, it connected. Pat's just glad it sounds like it was just Travis and not Brian. 

Pat's - not gonna be able to do this, this whole not-seeing-him thing. Adrenaline is singing panic in his ears and the high hollow of his chest, like he fucked up his caffeine intake for the day or something, and for once it is absolutely not fear for his _own_ life. Goddamnit, he knows he's gonna have way better luck doing some serious damage to this thing if his shots are coming from a more hidden, more secure vantage, but that's all gonna go out the window if he's spending the whole time worried about stupid gorgeous Brian and his stupid low armor class. He's just gonna have to run out in the open and face the monster head-on and hope that loud shiny Travis can distract it enough that Pat can still get in some good precision strikes. 

"Okay," he murmurs to himself: If this is gonna be his last sneak attack, he better make it count. Pat slips out from behind the uprooted tree stump that's been serving as his cover, just enough to see where Travis is gearing up for another slash - good. Perfect. Pat swipes his hand through his hair, calculates, triangulates, and then looses his dagger just a split-second after Travis gouges into the ogre's knee. The blade flies true, and _right_ as Travis pulls his own sword back, the silver dagger sinks deep into the wound he just left behind. When Pat snaps his fingers to recall the dagger, he can see it doing pretty nasty damage on exit, too. _Hell_ yeah. 

The ogre bellows horribly and drops to one knee, staggered by their combined efforts. Pat takes the moment to rush past, to go to Brian, but _fuck_ \- the ogre still swipes out at him, even from its kneeling position. Pat makes as uncanny a dodge as he can muster but that's still a solid hit, _oof, shit_, that's maybe not a bruised rib but it's not _not_ a bruised rib. Still, he keeps running, doesn't stop till he's within touching distance of Brian, reaching out for him even as he's shouting out "Pat, holy shit, are you okay?" 

"I'm fine," says Pat, "are you - "

_ Wum-WHUUMMMM._

Pat whips his head back around to see the ogre, the source of the sound. Travis is staring at it too, as the three of them huddle fairly close together, mystified by what is happening, which is that the ogre, still on one knee, has produced some kind of massive hunting horn (and like, it doesn't have much in the way of clothes or a bag, so uhhh _where was that_) and given it a long, bassy blast. The note rings and echoes through the otherwise quiet forest for longer than it feels like it should have, something eerie and arcane about it, and there's a strange, suspended moment between the four of them as Pat, Brian and Travis wait to see what the fuck _that's_ supposed to do, anyway.

A few seconds pass and there's a sharp, loud rustling and scratching through the trees to the northwest, and then another second or two passes and bursting through the brush - 

\- claws outstretched, raking toward them - 

\- is that _fucking raccoon_.

Pat's so fucking thrown that he acts purely on instinct, curling around his bad side and rolling out of the way, but the beast claws right into both Travis and, _fuck_, Brian. Travis shoulders the hit all right but Brian gives this _sound_, pain and surprise kind of swirled miserably together, that cuts straight into Pat. 

"_Brian,_" Pat moans, "please - " 

"I'm fine, thanks for asking," Travis gripes.

"Oh, fuck you," says Pat. "You should've been _protecting_ him, you're the one who dragged him out here to fight a fucking ogre in the first place - "

"I'm sorry, coming from _whomst_?" says Travis. "From the guy who was like highkey stalking us through the forest this whole time?"

"Fellas," Brian interjects. "As cute as it is to have two big strong boys fighting over me right now. Y'all gonna cover me or what?" 

Pat and Travis have already pretty much instinctually moved to put themselves bodily between Brian and the raccoon and the ogre, respectively, circling up back-to-back, on the defensive. Still - "Cover you for what exactly?" Pat asks of Brian, over his shoulder, keeping his dagger stretched toward the animal. But Brian's got his ukulele swung forward into both hands, and he strums out a couple of chords and hums in harmony with them and then sort of - checks out, just for a second, a bit of that teal-blue arcane energy pulsing around the instrument and around his face. He snaps back to it with a "oh, _hell_ yeah!" and then does it _again_, a longer and heavier melody this time, and then goes, "oh, goddamnit." 

"What?" says Pat, eyes fixed back on the raccoon. "What are you doing?" The raccoon lunges, but Pat ducks and it rakes over his head; he swipes up with his dagger but also hits empty air.

"I was trying to cast _dispel magic_ but it didn't fucking take," says Brian. "That hunting horn - it's defo enchanted. And if my _detect magic,_ which _did_ take, is to be believed - "

"Watch it!" The ogre has attempted to stagger to its feet again, swinging wildly, and Brian ducks low as Travis catches its attack with his sword but just barely. They keep circling, watching, waiting, tense as hell. This would actually be a pretty dope and badass fight if Pat weren't like, _in it_ and genuinely afraid for his life. 

" - I'm pretty sure that's the only thing keeping the the raccoon in service to the ogre," Brian explains. "I think if we can break the horn, we can break the thrall."

"So what?" says Pat. "Doesn't matter if they're working together or not, right, we still have to like, not get killed by them." 

Brian smiles, though, despite the place on his arm where Pat can see now that blood is seeping into his ridiculous poofed sleeve. "Mm, but see, that's the thing about some of these kinds of enchantments - "

"Oh!" interjects Travis. "Yeah! It's like - as soon as the spell is broken or like, nullified - "

" - the charmed creature is instantly _hostile_ toward whatever had it charmed in the first place," Brian says. He actually _grins_ with it. "Divide and conquer, baby." 

"_Stop mumblin' and die!_" yells the ogre, thrashing out again, but they hold position and evade pretty well, this time, since it's still not especially mobile. Pat's way less scared of it right now than he is of the raccoon, which looks positively feral, fixated especially on the brilliant glimmer of Travis's breastplate. Oh, yeah, fuck. It would definitely rule if these two shits would take each other out. 

"You've both got enchanted weapons, right? So one of you just needs to _smash that horn._" 

"I'm on it!" says Travis.

"Wait, no, you idiot," says Pat. "I'm way faster, I can dart in, get it, get out. You've already taken a few shitty hits, you're gonna get yourself - " The raccoon swipes again. Pat abandons his opportunity to retaliate in favor of _grabbing_ Brian and spinning them both out of its way. _God_ this blows. 

"I'm for sure stronger than you, though," Travis counters. "One good hit from me is gonna smash the thing, I don't - oof! - I don't feel like I could say the same for you and your nice knife."

"It's a _dagger_," whines Pat, mildly indignant and mad at himself for it. "Look, I _got_ this, just make sure - "

But Travis, god damn him, is already lunging forward, giving an oh-so-mighty battle cry and juking under the ogre's wild, swinging club arm to strike directly at the dark, misshapen horn. 

He gets it, and it shatters. 

The ogre backhands him right in the skull with the butt of the club, and Travis goes down like a _critically-hit_ sack of bricks. 

"_Stupid human! _" laughs the ogre. "_Elfs is next... Y'all is tastier..._ " But its voice is faltering, and when Pat focuses up on the raccoon again, he can see a red fury in its eyes that definitely wasn't there a second ago, zeroed - _finally_ \- not on them, but on the limping, lumbering pseudogiant right across from it.

Which like, is definitely on the _other_ side of Pat and Brian.

"Nnnnope!" Brian yelps, and he _bolts_ outta there, Pat right behind him with his hands still kind of on his waist, maneuvering the two of them behind that same curve of rocky hill Pat had been hiding on when this whole dumb shit started. They swing around behind and lay their backs to it, Pat at the outside edge peering out to where the raccoon is just fully going off on the ogre now, its nasty claws digging into its nasty skin. _Yikes_ that's gross. 

"That ogre's not gonna last long," Pat says. "The paladin and I got some pretty good hits in, it's already real fucked up. Plus that raccoon is just _hornier_ for it."

"Dude, for real though? Fuck that thing," says Brian. 

"Agreed." 

"I mean, great for us that the raccoon is taking that big boy out," says Brian, "but once it's done we probably won't have much time before it goes for Travis, so what's the plan?"

Pat huffs. "Uh, plan is, screw him, let's get the fuck out of here while they're all distracted? I know we wanted his money but - "

"Patrick." Brian shoots him a look, and ohh, this is how it's gonna be now, huh. Pat sighs and nods reluctantly. 

"Okay, okay. What's the move." Pat risks another peek over at the carnage - the ogre got a good bash on the raccoon's head, one of its ears looks totally fucked, but the raccoon absolutely has the upper hand. Their time's getting shorter. "We probably only get one good hit off to keep it off him, huh."

"We?" says Brian. Pat turns back to him and he's fixing him with the sweetest and, like, most _curious_ gaze. "No, babe - _you_ have to do it." 

Brian reaches out for Pat, shoves both his hands into the hair at Pat's temples, clutches hard, and _kisses_ him, just like, _crazy_ lush and deep and adrenaline-hungry, curling their bodies together behind this mossy outcrop while the weirdest deathmatch ever rages on just a few yards east of them. Pat lets his hands slide dumbly around to Brian's ass and hold on for dear life, but Brian is one hundred percent captaining this one, and he sucks hard and wild at Pat's mouth and then - _hums,_ into the kiss, a sweet little six-note ascending trill that seems to fill up every corner and cranny of Pat's mouth and then seep down inside of him, like the melody is sinking into Pat's blood, buoyed on a wave of that bright Brian-blue light. It's warm and heart-thumping and just, like, goddamn _inspirational_, is what it is. Pat suddenly feels like he could kick some raccoon _ass_ without breaking a sweat if Brian just said the word.

Brian says, "Take 'em to clown school, Patrick." 

Pat slinks out from behind the jut of the hill to a tree that's a few feet closer to their enemies, and he can see now that the ogre is on death's door. The raccoon is losing interest. The ogre can't even stand up anymore, is flailing out desperately at the raccoon's hind legs and stomach, but even with the damage the raccoon has also taken, it's not having any trouble dodging. Gruesomely, it launches itself mouth-first at the ogre's little head for a vicious, snarling bite, and Pat sees it connect with eyeball. Fuck, _gross._ He cringes away for a second and when he looks back again the ogre isn't moving. The raccoon paws and nudges at it with its creepy hands, looking for all the world like any rogue Pat's ever seen frisking a dead body. It halfheartedly attempts to lift the bone-spiked club but it doesn't really have the sheer strength for it. It abandons that plan quickly when it sees poor, dumb, unconscious Travis, sprawled out, god, just so close to the warzone, his rose-gold plate glinting warmly in the sun. 

Pat closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and when he opens them again, there are traces of Brian's blue-green glow trailing off everything in his vision like little benevolent specters, and it's like they're - pointing him in the right direction. He twirls his dagger five or six times in his unerring fingers until the spin and the heft and the moment are exactly _right_, and then - 

lets fly -

and no-scopes the raccoon right between its fucking eyes. 

The raccoon conks to the forest floor.

"What! _Hell yeah, what!!_" Brian cries, running out from his hiding spot to meet Pat. Pat, well aware that he is grinning stupidly but unable to _stop_, grabs Brian's shoulders and kisses him again, just the once. 

They jog over to Travis and do their best to heft up his limp body, even though he's easily bigger than both of them, and also wearing heavier armor than either of them. But if Brian gets the feet and Pat gets him under the armpits they should at least be able to move him back as far as the forest path, which should be a safer place to post up and heal and get their bearings, rather than out here fully in the woods. 

"I have a couple spell slots left, and one, parenthesis _1_ healing spell in my li'l ol' repertoire," says Brian. "But if you've got a potion in that there fancy jacket of yours, that might serve us better, especially if we don't want this bozo to just pass out again on our way back to - uh, wherever we're going." 

"Yeah, I guess when we steal his shit we'll be able to afford a replacement potion," Pat agrees. "Okay, you good? On three?" 

"Yeppers," says Brian. "One - two - "

"_Brian!_"

Because behind him, there's a sudden scramble of movement as the raccoon - which is apparently not dead or _even unconscious_ \- scrabbles its claws out toward them in last-minute desperation. Brian is right in its melee zone and Pat just hopes he yelled out in time - _fuck_ \- 

Brian - twirls fuckin' artfully out of the way, like a dancer more than anything, and leaves in his wake a sparkling trail of red and gold light, just for a second.

"Hoo-_hoo_!" he crows. "_Ring of Evasion_, nerdass!" The motion and the mockery are punctuated by the bedazzled outside of his thigh purse jingling like a tambourine, and - holy shit, Pat's pretty sure Brian just cast a _spell_ from that, the turquoise energy of his magic fluttering out and swirling around the raccoon's head. It falls face-first into the dirt again, and Brian kneels down and scoops up Travis's legs right below the knees. Pat can only stare, dumbfounded and so, so - 

In love, he thinks, is probably what that is. 

It's been all of seven fucking hours, but, y'know.

"Come on!" Brian cries, "let's haul ass!" And Pat hefts up Travis's shoulders and they - haul some ass, as best they can anyway, scooching in tandem through the trees and boulders and back to the path that will lead them either southward back toward the Many Corners or northeast to like, wherever the fuck. Somewhere better than here, Pat hopes. 

Once they're in the clear, they drop Travis very unceremoniously back into the dirt. 

"God, this fucker better be rich," Pat mutters. He slides his jacket from his shoulders, flips to the inside and runs his dagger through the threads attaching the furthest-lefthand patch, which slips into his hand and then immediately shifts form into two small, thick-glassed bottles, each filled with a cloudy-green healing potion. He pops the cork on one and takes a swig for himself before holding the rest to Travis's slackjawed mouth.

Brian's crouching next to him, patting at his bearded face, at least trying to have a little bit of a better bedside manner. "Hey, Trav, you wanna wake up?" he murmurs, kindly. "We beat all the bad guys, you're good now, my man." The potion trickles sloppily down across his tongue, and a moment later, he stirs, sputtering. Pat clocks him doing a quick body-check, head-torso-limbs, and then a secondary pass, sword-armor-beard-testicles. He shuffles his elbows under him and Pat and Brian lean back to give him space to sit up.

"Whoo-ee," he says. "Okay, that was a messy one, boys. I will admit, could've been a lot better." He presses his hand to his own chest, and Pat watches as it swiftly builds up an arcane glow to it, like an iron heating over a fire but purple instead of orange. Travis closes his eyes and then gasps a little and the glow disappears. Must be some kind of healing shit, because now he feels good enough to stand. They all three stand in the middle of the path, the air thick and awkward with _so now what_. Travis finally speaks again.

"Uhh, so, thank y - "

"Nope," says Brian.

"Yeah, fuck off, dude," says Pat. He holds his dagger out toward Travis, not especially threatening, just like. Present. "Time to hand it over."

"Whoa, whoa!" says Travis, his hands up placatingly. "Hand what over?" 

"Your gold," Brian says with a shrug. "Your valuables. Whatever you're feelin' generous about."

"Are you _kidding_?"

"Not at all, my guy," says Pat. "Remember how you busted my balls for stalking y'all through the woods? This'd be why."

"It'd be like, way, way cooler if you did this the easy way," Brian adds, "but I will let you know, I know some spells that could probably like, work out any issues you might have with the plan, if you decide, y'know, otherwise."

Travis - _laughs_? Like, laughs at them. "Boys," he says. "Gailbraithe, or whatever a-_the fucke_ your name is, Brian. Rogue man." 

Pat's not laughing. "_What._"

"I don't have any money." He shrugs, open-palmed, at the two of them. "Thank you so much for saving my life, _really_ appreciate it, but I'm afraid I can't really help with your grand master plan, here."

"Bullshit," says Pat. "You were buying drinks for everyone in that bar like it was nothing, and your armor is super nice. Cough it the hell up."

"I did all of that on _party_ funds," says Travis. "From my party! They're actually uhhh probably gonna be super pissed about all that, I spent basically all of it, but I felt it was important to make a statement in the town, that way once I _slew their monster_ \- " He's tipped back into his goofy grandiose posturing and Pat is _over_ it, there's no way this guy is empty-handed, because if he is - 

If Pat Gill, level six thief rogue, has struck out on a mark for the _third fucking time today_ \- 

Pat stops listening to any-damn-thing Travis is saying and just lunges for the rucksack at his waist.

"Hey!" says Travis. "Stop that!" 

"Give me your fucking gold!" Pat has _had_ it with this guy, and with today, and with being broke. Come _on_.

"Pat," Brian says, soft and resigned. "Pat, I don't think he has any money."

"Yeah, _Pat_, listen to your little bard buddy here, I don't - "

_"Travis Patrick McElroy." _

There's a voice from up the northeast path, and all three of them spring apart to look up at the newcomer - no, newcomers, there's two of them. And okay, that should be the most surprising thing to Pat, probably, but he turns and makes a face at Brian, who is making the same face back at him, because _seriously_ \- 

_Patrick?_ they both mouth at each other, in unison. It's like. It's just unreal. 

"Brothers!" Travis cries, and underneath his paladin exuberance Pat doesn't miss the thready current of _oh shit_. This must be the "party" he spoke of.

Two other men are coming down the forest path toward them, and oh, when Travis said _brothers_, maybe he meant it literally. The larger of the two is decked out in some nice studded leather armor, sort of a slate-grey, much less flashy than Travis's, way more practical. Their orcish heritage has manifested most strongly in him, an element of tuskishness around his mouth, and slung across his back is something that is probably a shield but is also kind of shaped like a lute? Pat's perplexed. The other man is a little taller, a little more slender, a little more human, and looks for all the world like - a teller at a fuckin' bank, he's even wearing spectacles, but the look is turned on its head just a little by the swirling white tattoos that curl up the backs of his calves and his upper arms and even around his neck, just enough of an offset from his skintone to be disconcerting and like, warlock _AF_. They both stride right up to Travis, and the older one keeps speaking as if Pat and Brian aren't even there.

"Do you have _any idea_ ," he intones, low and needling, "how _fucking stupid_ you have been all goddamn day running around in the woods chasing monsters."

"I just thought - "

"You didn't think, though, is the thing," says the warlock one. "Like, no thinking took place here."

"You could have died," the other brother says. "Like, for real died, and with none of us around to fucking _revivify_ you, and do you know how much it costs to cast a true _resurrection_?"

"Justin - "

"It is a seventh level spell, it costs so _fucking_ much - "

"Look, I'm sor - "

"And if I had turned up with your dead ass, your wife would have killed _me_, and then _my_ wife would've had to cast _resurrection_ **_twice_**," says Justin. "And you would really do that, huh. To a woman with two children."

"Hey, go easy on him, Justin," says the one with the glasses. "_One_ of us had to have wisdom as our dump stat." He grins shittily at Travis and Pat doesn't bother to repress his snicker.

This seems to snap the three of them out of it, and the one named Justin finally turns and acknowledges Pat. "I am so sorry for any bullshit this total fucking clown probably caused you in the last four hours or so," he says. "This kid has got an attention span about an inch long, he's gotta find something to swing his sword at or he will literally cease functioning, and y'all don't deserve to have got caught up in it." 

"Well, it's okay," says Brian, shrugging affably. "Um, we'll just like, leave, though."

"Although," Pat interjects, "if there were anything you guys wanted to do to like. Compensate us for our troubles."

The warlock snorts. "Nah dude, we don't have _shit_ for cash right now. You want his armor? You can have his armor, probably."

"No, Griffin, I need that!" says Travis. "What's gonna protect my insides!" 

"Yeah Griff, we don't need him to be even _more_ likely to die. Look, sorry dudes, y'all seem like nice people - "

"They were gonna rob me!!" 

" - but we're just haul his sorry ass back to our caravan wagon and hit the road. No hard feelings."

"Yeah, likewise," Pat grumbles. Goddamnit. They were so _close_. 

Travis's two brothers strongarm him back in the direction they came from, all griping at each other like a monster with three disagreeable heads as they walk abreast down the path, casting longer and longer shadows (wait - okay, Justin and Travis cast shadows, Griffin weirdly _totally does not_) as afternoon rolls its way into evening. Before too long it's just Pat and Brian standing awkwardly in the road. 

"So, what the fuck just happened," says Pat.

"Beats the heck out of me," says Brian. 

They start walking, sort of unspokenly drifting back toward the Many Corners, for lack of a better plan. Brian plucks a couple strings on his ukulele and sings a couple sweet little nonsense notes, and Pat sees him casting a healing spell on himself, and then one on Pat, leaving his insides bubbling like he drank something carbonated. When Brian's finished with that, he shoulders the instrument again and slips his hand into Pat's, holding it as they walk. It's...nice. It's so fucking nice, after the disaster that the rest of today has been.

"You know," Brian says after a while. "I think between us, we might have enough coin for exactly one night at that pisshole tavern."

Pat's kind of been thinking the same thing. "Well, yeah," he says, "but only if we share a room. Shared a bed."

"Oh no," says Brian. "Sharing a bed. Whatever will we do."

"I mean," says Pat, "we could always go plunder that raccoon's stash now that it's dead, I'm sure there's some good shit in there." The corners of his mouth tick up, just a little, as Brian's eyes practically bug out of his head. "If we needed it."

"Oh, _shit_!" says Brian. "I hadn't even - Pat Gill, you're a _genius_. I could kiss you." 

"You could," says Pat. "You gonna?" 

Brian's gonna. He stops walking, and his fervent grip on Pat's hand tugs Pat to a stop, too, and Brian cups his other hand around Pat's jaw and slides a slow, thorough - Pat might dare to call it _passionate_ kiss right over Pat's mouth, his tongue tracing the seam of Pat's lips and then delving inside, the fizz of the healing spell still sort of cascading through him and combining with the thrill of Brian's warm, talented mouth. Pat feels like - he could bury himself in this kiss for hours, and honestly he fuckin' _plans on it,_ hasn't forgotten this morning (fuck that was _just this morning_) against the tree, hasn't forgotten Brian's last sneaky little thieves' cant message to him from the bar. Pat slides both his hands up Brian's back, one higher between his shoulders and one lower right at the smallest part of his waist, and presses Brian _close_, eliminating the space between their bodies, so tight he can feel when Brian's chest expands and contracts with his breath, can feel when Pat - kisses the breath out of him. God, today was all kinds of fucked up, they struck out _so_ many times, but somehow Pat's finding it hard to give a shit when the net outcome - having Brian, _having_ him, just like this, all the time, whenever - is so overwhelmingly, incredibly good. 

Brian finally peels them apart, but keeps his face close, rolling his smooth cheek against the scruff of Pat's jaw. "But like, for real, could we maybe save the raccoon cave thing for the morning?"

Pat groans in relief. "God I am so glad you said that, I am so _fucking_ tired."

\----

Brian's so glad Pat said that, because he is so _fucking_ tired.

The walk back to the Many Corners feels like it's taking forever, even though Brian knows they weren't actually that far out, it's just that their pace is dragging, their feet trudging slowly, so slowly on the dusty path. Pat seems even more worn out than he is, and Brian hopes he's doing okay, hopes that _healing word_ came through for him in a decent way. Brian should probably heal him again, and even that wouldn't be enough to - to thank him, for everything he's done today. Everything he's done for Brian.

Brian can't believe he's this far gone for a guy who threw him off a bridge.

They don't even talk as they inch their way back to the tavern, just holding each other's hands and occasionally sliding or squeezing to let the other know they're still there, still glad to be there. They make it to the bridge, again, and Pat bends close to Brian, noses his face into the bit of Brian's hair he can get at underneath his hat, and whispers yet another heartfelt _sorry_. Brian just smiles and kisses his cheek. Stupid. At last, there's the tavern before them, its pink-painted sign looking dilapidated as ever, and right on the threshold, Brian hard-stops, putting himself squarely between Patrick and the door.

"All right, Pat Gill," he says, palm outstretched, demanding, "gimme all your gold."

"Y'know, I am getting just the _weirdest_ feeling of déjà vu right now," grumbles Pat, but he's smirking, and already shrugging out of his jacket, flipping it inside out and proffering it toward Brian so he can rip loose the patch that will become the bag of holding. Oh, that's neat - Brian notices where the patch that turned into Pat's two healing potions is a smaller circle, now, with one of the bottles having been emptied. 

"Ohh - " Brian also notices Pat's arm, what with the jacket being off, and all. "Huh. Looks like that healio I gave you earlier healed up your ah, your little bruise there." He lets his hand rest along Pat's upper arm, thumb stroking at the place he'd left his mark on earlier. It's gone, now, the skin cream-pale and blemish-free. 

Pat twists his head down and extends his arm to get a look at it himself. "Huh," he echoes. "Mm, shame. Guess you'll just have to gimme a redo." 

He catches Brian's eye, and his gaze is hooded, wicked dark, and his tongue pokes just a little into the inside of his cheek right next to his smirking mouth. Brian matches his grin, because _hell_ yeah: As worn out as Pat is, he clearly is not prioritizing _sleeping_ once they get into this room. Which is good because neither the fuck is Brian. 

Brian hustles, then, quickly counting out the coin they're gonna need to stay the night, four-silver-seven-copper. Dang, it really is nearly everything they've got. That raccoon stuff better still be there tomorrow. He gives Pat his bag back and starts heading into the tavern, trusting Pat to follow as he beelines it straight for the proprietor at the bar.

"We'd like your bedroomiest bedroom, please," Brian trills.

The bartender, this halfling dude who looks old enough to be Brian's grandpa, which means he's probably at least a hundred, just fixes Brian with - the exact fucking look he's expecting, honestly. The look slides slow, slow and disdainful from Brian, to Pat, to the coin Brian's slapped down onto the bartop, and finally back up to Brian. Then he ducks down beneath the bar and produce upon his return a short, thick copper key with an elaborate red-tassled fob attached. 

"Third right," the guy sneers. "Just - keep it down, _bard_." 

Brian gives the man his absolute sauciest wink and then grabs Patrick's wrist and drags him with him to the back of the bar, past the stage, where the bar portion of the tavern walls off into the inn portion. Brian immediately clocks the third door from the right, which has a matching red tassle dangling in the center.

It's - not a great room, honestly. Brian's stayed over at this place a number of times and none of the rooms are all that great, but this one is just _especially_ underwhelmingly average, which he points out as they start to settle in. 

"Not exactly the, the _luxury suite_ we'd have in an ideal situation, huh," he says, sitting on the edge of the low-slung bed, kicking his legs out a little like a schoolkid.

"Brian," says Pat, low and deadly serious, as he sits down next to him - "we fucked against a _tree_ this morning." 

He lurches forward and plants his mouth straight onto Brian's, kissing slow and smooth and cool, no ferocity behind it just yet - yet. God, Pat remains just an astonishingly good kisser, and Brian's not gonna complain any time he wants to do it, just the two of them with their lips locked together at the end of this shitty bed, hands to themselves, almost - almost more like a first kiss than any of their kisses yet, just the slightest tease of tongue right at the seam of them, Pat's neck tilting till it finds the most killer angle, their breath coming in sharp. Brian can feel the soft brush of Pat's curtain of hair tickling against his cheek and his chin. He feels - not like overwhelmed, but maybe just _whelmed_, caught in a moment and a state of existence that feels so exactly right and good, kissing and touching Pat in a private room with the door locked where the rest of the weird, garbage world can't get at them, finally. 

(They _did_ lock the door, right?) 

Brian smiles into the kiss, and rests his hand on the side of Pat's neck, tipping them both back and sideways till they're lying on their sides in the bed, still kissing. Pat tongues his way into Brian's mouth, now, twisting and sliding against him, _god_ it's good. But the thing is, now Brian's bag is super digging into his leg, and if he's not careful he's gonna smash his phials that he needs for his _hypnotic patterns_. Plus it's real uncomfy.

"Patrick," he whispers against Pat's mouth, "should we take our clothes off, this time?" 

Pat laughs, his full Pat Gill laugh, into Brian's cheek. "Yeah, y'know, that, that might be a good idea."

They sit back up and take their clothes off. Brian's tempted to make a real show of it, the bard-ass striptease that Pat deserves and that Brian definitely, definitely wants to subject him to sometime, but they _are_ still both kind of wiped from their insane day, and honestly, neither of them are watching any less hungrily for the inelegance of it. Brian unties his boots only as much as he needs to to get them off, unhooks his purse and slides it and his shorts off all at once, down his legs to the floor. His fingers fumble in the laces of his blouse as Pat does - that stupid _boy_ thing, tugging his tunic off by the back of his neck, the hood, till he's just standing there in his leggings and those big nasty boots, and _god_ that's doing it for Brian, his pale torso just as long and ropy as his stupid arms, a slim dark trail (_also_ flecked with white, that adorable drow heritage) dipping down into his waistband. Brian discards his hat and is working on the rest of it, vest and shirt open down the front but still hanging from his arms, when Pat strides long-legged across to him and crowds into his space and starts doing it for him, shoving the fabric down his shoulders and kissing him more and more and just, god. Brian's definitely edging into the _over_whelmed now as he feels Pat's dick shifting against his hip, not fully hard in his leggings but getting there, filling out, getting ready for Brian, and Pat's terrible swift fucking hands get Brian totally naked before Brian can even get the man's damn pants off.

Pat's touching him everywhere, squeezing and petting at Brian's skin, his teeth creeping into the kiss, sucking, dragging on Brian's upper lip. "Fuck you," Pat hisses into his mouth, "you been hiding all _that_ in that big stupid shirt all day?" He rubs full-palmed over Brian's pectoral and his nipple, and Brian gasps, because _whooo_, Pat's hand just spans fully from his sternum to his armpit and then some, and he'd be ticklish if he weren't so turned the fuck _on_, and oh, god, it's gonna be like this the whole time. 

Still, Pat's one to freaking talk. "Um, speak for yourself, mister," says Brian. He slides both hands around Pat's waist and digs his thumbs into the crooks of Pat's hipbones, and then, feeling _inspired_, slips his mouth away from Pat's and licks a long, tight line straight up Pat's chest, to sink his teeth into his suprasternal notch and suck, hard. This is just as good as that arm spot, he figures. (Well - almost as good. Fuck, when he's done, he bites Pat's bicep, too.) 

Pat groans and locks their hips together, and Brian feels Pat's cock just _throbbing_, and Brian throbs, too, all through his blood, in his cock but also all up the back of his neck, down the lengths of his thighs, he's so _hot_ for it. "Better tell me what's on the table, babe," says Pat, rocking his hips into Brian's now, the slick of Brian's swollen cockhead catching and smearing on the leather of Pat's leggings, and oh god, Brian's gonna go insane, "because if you don't, I'm just gonna start - " he _licks_ up the side of Brian's neck and Brian just _moans_ \- "improvising - " 

"Wh - what's on the table with you?" says Brian. "Or, or off it? Or - what - _oh god_." Pat's got one wide hand fully around one-half of Brian's ass now and is just massaging in, pressing forward, grinding their hips harder together.

"I just want you," Pat says in his ear, and Brian thinks it's meant to be this throaty, filthy growl, and it is, mostly, but there's this flicker of tenderness underneath it that's almost just - even more devastating, cutting down to Brian's core, leaving him gasping a soft _Patrick_. "I want anything you got, just say the word and I'm, I'm so - " Pat gives up talking and just sinks his whole mouth over the point of Brian's ear and sucks, and holy shit.

Well. Brian's.

Got something, actually. Now that Pat mentions it. 

Exercising literally every ounce of his will, Brian slides both hands slow and heavy up Pat's stomach, up his chest, and then pushes, just enough to separate them from each other. Pat whines a little as they peel apart but Brian gives him a quick, dirty kiss on the lips and says, "Gimme a second to grab something?" He shoots a hungry look up and down Pat's body - "Oh, and get your pants off, you silly billy."

"Right," says Pat. "Hey, yeah, I'm gonna - grab - me too - " He makes for his jacket on the floor, for his bag, and Brian takes a moment to do the same - has to find wherever his purse ended up, in the strip, but rifles through it until he can find that wax paper parcel full of honeycomb. He knew he'd saved that for something. Brian grins, just a tiny little one just for himself, as he breaks a small shard off and wraps the rest of it back up, keeping his little piece tucked into his palm.

When he turns back around, Pat is finally, beautifully naked, sitting right at the edge of the bed, and Brian has to just take a minute to study on the firm lines of his thighs and his hard, red cock jutting up between them, breathing out hard through his mouth as he gets a real good look at it for the first time. God, he just had about fourteen more ideas - but he _really_ wants to follow through on this one. (Though - he doesn't miss - resting oh so innocuously next to Patrick on the bedspread is one of those vials of oil Brian saw in his bag of holding earlier. Brian licks his lips.)

He takes another deep breath that has much less to do with Pat's cock. He doesn't say anything, not for a beat anyway, but he makes eye contact with Pat, and Pat just looks - so _good_, just as eager and hot for it as Brian is, his mouth hanging softly open as he _stares_ at Brian, raking over his body, but never failing to meet back up with his eyes, electric-charged as his hands fidget against his own knees. Like he's straining to reach out and touch Brian; like it's not gonna be long before he can't resist anymore. And something just sparks and flares inside of Brian that leaves his cock twitching, because - yeah, that's exactly what he was looking for.

"Okay," he says. "Okay. Y'all mind if I do something a little bit nasty?"

Brian can _ see _ the wave of arousal that washes over Pat. "What - what did you - could you be uh, a little more specific?"

Brian toys with the fragment of the honeycomb in his hand, and he knows Pat can see it but he also knows just as well that Pat has no idea what it's for. He says, "You ever fail a wisdom save on purpose before?" Pat...says nothing, does nothing, which is telling enough; Brian's quick to follow up. "I promise if you hate it I will stop and I will never, ever do it again."

"God, Brian - yes, okay. I'll do - " He rubs the heel of his hand down over his straining cock, just once, his eyes rolling shut with it, and _god_ Brian could make a whole 'nother night of that, just watching Pat touch himself - "I'll do anything."

Brian grins. A little bit nasty. He slides the tiny chunk of honeycomb into his mouth, gets it wedged up in his cheek. 

"Excellent." He crosses over to sit next to Pat on the bed, lay his hand on the curve of Pat's neck, pins him with his darkest, sultriest gaze as he leans in. "It's just," he breathes hotly, millimeters from Pat's mouth, his voice dropped low, "I just have a couple of _suggestions_...."

Brian feels that tug at his core as his arcane power spills out of him, little tendrils reaching out and twisting like invisible smoke around Pat's throat. He can see it, in Pat's eyes, when the spell quicks into him, and all of him erupts into goosebumps, one part nervous fear to four parts _horny as hell_. Got 'im. 

"_I want you to get on your knees for me, right now,_" Brian commands, and Pat just - just fucking _does it_. It's dizzying how quickly he obeys, dropping to the floor between Brian's spread legs. "_And you're gonna put that sweet mouth of yours exactly where I want it, 'kay?_"

"God, yes," Pat whines. He nuzzles the scruff of his beard up along the inside expanse of Brian's thigh, and then repeats with his lips and tongue, and Brian sighs and threads his fingers into Pat's hair, not pulling yet, just holding, clutching close. Pat licks up the seam of Brian's thigh and pelvis. "Oh god, Brian, this is - "

"I know, baby."

"I just - I _need_ to - "

"I know," Brian says again. "That's how _suggestion_ works." 

Pat sucks a dark, tight kiss at the base of Brian's cock, and then slides his whole mouth up the length of him to the tip, getting the throbbing red head between his lips and suckling firm but sweet. It's - _shit_ it's good, how is it fair that Pat's just as good with his mouth as with his damnable hands, and Brian bucks forward, just a little, forcing another inch or two inside. Pat, perfect suggestible Pat, just fucking takes it. He sucks harder, moaning on Brian's cock, something that maybe would sound like _please_ if he didn't have his mouth full. Brian's eyes nearly flutter shut at that but he forces them open - he doesn't want to miss a second of this. Pat looks an absolute _mess_ on his cock, dark hair spilling everywhere and his mouth getting redder and sloppier by the second as Brian sinks into its hot, wet perfection, blissed out and _stupid_ with arousal. He bobs harder, tongues down inside Brian's foreskin just a little, salivating like he's _hungry_ for it. Which, because Brian _told him to be_, he is. God, the sick thrill of it floods through Brian along with each wave of his regular ol' horny, and he tangles his fingers harder in Pat's hair, tugs just enough that Pat can feel it, just tight enough that he's guiding Pat's actions a little now. Pat moans, harder, more unintelligible. 

"You know," pants Brian, beginning to fuck into Pat's mouth now, for real, chasing the gasping wetness of his tongue, edging toward his throat, "you know, this spell lasts - this can last up to eight hours." He presses his other hand to the side of Pat's cheek, feels his own cock pulsing in Pat's mouth. "I could lay you out and get you to do all sorts of filthy, gorgeous things for me, Pat Gill. Trapped under my spell."

Pat slides off Brian's dick in a tight, swirling suck, pulls back to just mouth at the head. "Eight hours," Pat says, "or until - until you lose concentration, right?" He just, _ just _ catches his teeth at the seam of Brian's foreskin and Brian gasps out _oh!_, jerks his hips back toward Pat's face.

"Well - I - I guess - "

"Babe," says Pat, "if you can still concentrate on a spell, I'm not doing my fucking _job_." 

He all but _lunges_ forward onto Brian's dick, swallowing him all the way down till Brian's clipping into the tight clutch of Pat's throat. Brian's fingers _seize_ in his hair, his hips hitching further forward off the bed, a little, and apparently that's - oh _god, that's_ \- the _perfect_ opening for Pat to suddenly be sliding one hand up underneath him to press behind his balls and catch along the rim of his hole and it is already _slick with oil, somehow_ \- 

"_Pat_," Brian moans. "When did - how did you - "

Pat _swallows_ around Brian's cockhead, gags just the tiniest bit, and pulls off to grin that shark-grin up at him, mouthing now at a stretch of his thigh, letting Brian's aching cock nudge up by his ear. His voice curls into an uncanny impersonation of Brian's own cadence: "_Sleight of hand, baybee._ " The two fingers at Brian's entrance twist and push - not quite penetrating - not _yet_ \- and Pat's still tonguing all over Brian's cock, as per his instructions, but Brian is - oh geez okay oh _god_ Brian's brain is whiting out with the dual onslaught of wet mouth and slick callused fingers and he just. He's ready to take the L on this one. Brian reaches down to that arcane place inside of him and tugs, and there's a little _hitch_ in his chest like a lock unlocking as he voluntarily drops the _suggestion_'s hold on Pat. Pat's mouth against Brian's dick curls into a victorious smirk, and Brian knows he can feel it, too, the instant the spell is over and he's free to do - 

Fuck, whatever it is _he_ wants to do - 

Into the sweating crease of Brian's pelvis, Pat rumbles, "_My turn_." 

He sits back from Brian, brushes his hair from his face with his dry hand, and slowly, eyes on Brian's, like a goddamn predator animal, Pat _stalks_ up off the floor, crawls, climbs, maneuvers around the place where Brian's seated until he's seated behind him, hips nestled close, pressed back-to-front. Brian feels so _surrounded_ by him, his legs bracketing Brian's body, his chin coming to hook over Brian's shoulder and kiss along his ear, his long lean body just swallowing Brian up. Brian can feel Pat's heartbeat up against the breadth of his back, going - reassuringly - just as hard as his own, and his thick, leaking cock digging into the small of Brian's back, his hips hitching in tiny aborted circles.

Brian arches back into him, rolling his head to the side so Pat has better access to kiss and suck along his neck. Pat's thighs are _squeezing_ at Brian's body, now, his cock jerking, and Brian scooches back into him - just enough to startle a moan out of him, his teeth sinking into the meat of Brian's shoulder - and then hoists his legs and thighs up and _around_, so Pat's are on the inside now, and Brian's basically sitting in his lap. Like this, Pat's cock slip-slides up into Brian's crack, still mostly slicked from the oil Pat left with his fingers. God, Brian moans at that, too.

"You gonna," Brian pants, "you gonna fuck me, Patrick?" He grabs Pat's hand, curls it back around front past his cock to his hole, hitches his hips forward to get it where he needs it again. "You'd _better_." 

"Well, you know what they say," says Pat, still kissing down from Brian's hair to the top knob of his spine, all tongue and teeth and hot, wet breath. " - Once you go drow, you don't forget how." 

Brian - bursts out into a snicker, shaking against him. "Literally no one says that, oh my _god_. You just made that up. Or, like, I hope you _just_ made that up, I hope you haven't been - "

"It's certain definitions of _they_," Pat retorts, and then slides his middle finger about halfway _in_.

Brian will admit - he _wails_ with it. He can feel the knob of Pat's knuckle right around his rim and it stretches and grinds so good, and he wants more, god, _please_, the time for foolin' around is _over_, and Brian's pumping his hips forward and down and around to get as much of Pat's finger inside him as possible. It's a bit of an odd angle, but Pat's fingers really are, god, just _stupid_ long, and it's enough for now for Brian to just roll himself into it, his balls resting at Pat's wrist, his other hand twisting back around to the back of Pat's neck to anchor himself in Pat's sweaty hair. Pat's other hand is conspicuously absent, not jerking Brian off or snagging at his nipples or anything, but it's obvious where it's been when suddenly there's more oil, more slide, and Pat twists his one finger out and then twists back in with another - 

And fuck, in a flash of desperation, so does Brian.

Brian slides one of his own fingers in alongside the two of Pat's and it punches a starstruck, aroused _oh, shit_ out of Pat, buried into the dark pocket behind Brian's ear, and Brian's own eyes roll shut and his head lolls back onto Pat's shoulder. There, god, _there_, the three of their fingers stretching at his entrance but Pat's just pressing so much _deeper_, Brian can feel the callus from Pat's dagger curling along his slick inside walls and he's _catching fire_ with it, god he knew it would be like this - stretched so full and open on Pat's dreamy dexterous hands - it's just exactly what he wanted - 

Well, what he wants is - 

"Do it," Brian pants, "please, Pat, I gotta - you're killin' me - "

"God shit yeah okay fuck," Pat stammers out all at once. With a slow, dragging wrench like it _pains_ him, Pat slides his and Brian's fingers out of Brian's hole, and Brian gasps because he feels so _empty_ now and then gasps again as Pat swipes along his stiff neglected cock on his upward pass. Blindly, Brian fumbles out for the bottle of oil along the bedspread and his hand collides with Pat's doing the same thing. Through it all, Brian cracks a delirious smile.

Then there's oil dripping down the small of his back into his crack, and more, and _more_, and then Pat grabs Brian's left hip and push-n-shoves him where he needs him and suddenly - so sudden but also like, _finally_ \- there's the blunt, unforgiving pressure of Pat's thick cock at Brian's stretched hole as he sinks inside.

"Pa-atrick," he moans. "Oh, _wow_."

"_Fuck_," growls Pat, his dry hand massaging in hard to the meat of Brian's left thigh, bracing himself. "God, shit, Brian, you feel so _fucking_ good." 

Pat feels _amazing_. Brian's arching, drifting, and just - "Kiss me?" he breathes, twisting his neck back around to snatch Pat's mouth with his own.

"Oh, fuck yeah."

Pat heaves upward with his hips and grinds his cock so deep into Brian and Brian is just - still wailing, into the kiss, and honestly fuck that barkeep because he's going to be as loud as he damn well pleases when Pat is fucking him _so right_. They shuffle forward a little more for leverage, Pat can get at least one foot planted on the floor and Brian is just draped open over him but he's got enough power in his thighs, in his core to contribute at least a little bit, and they fall into a deep, brutal grinding rhythm that basically never alleviates the pressure on Brian's prostate and god he is just _singing_ with it, all his nerves alight, the breath punching out of him with every jerk of Pat's hips. Pat's oil-slicked hand joins Brian's to stroke his cock - Brian wraps his hand around Pat's to wrap Pat's around his dick, and they jerk together, matching the rhythm of Pat's impossibly blunt and heavy little jabs, the movements shallow but the pressure so, so deep inside of Brian, crumbling him apart.

"Oh god, baby I'm so _full_," says Brian, swiveling his hips desperately now, still so wrapped up in Pat as he strips him _raw_ with it, _god_. He really could come any fucking second now but he wants - wants Pat to go first, this time, wants to hear him crying out for Brian and feel him fall apart underneath him and fill him up with his come - 

"Brian," Pat whispers, his voice downright _breaking_ in Brian's ear, "Brian, please, fuck - "

He shoves his tongue in Brian's mouth, deep and hungry, and he rolls his hips hard hard _harder_ into Brian's ass, fuckin' bullseye every time, and Brian clenches his hand in Pat's hair and pulls, real good, on purpose. The noise Pat makes as he detaches his mouth from Brian's and strings up and comes _hard_ inside of him is maybe the most incredible, musical thing Brian has ever heard. Pat's thumb digs deep into the uppermost curve of Brian's asscheek where he's grabbed onto his hip and he's just absolutely _flooding_ inside of him, gasping and jerking and coming and _coming_ and still pumping into him through the crest of the wave, fucking through the sloshy mess that's filling Brian's hole, and god Brian feels so _full_ of him, feels so blessed to be so cherished and come-bloated and filthy with Pat's hand bruise-tight on his hip and his cock still stretching Brian wide and their fingers still tangled around his cock and he comes, too, crying out one last "_Patrick!_" and shooting out onto the floor, writhing with it in Pat's lap as it blisses out down all of his limbs and out through his fingers and toes, wet and warm and wonderful and just. Damn, Patrick. _Hell_ yeah.

Pat falls completely backward onto his back in the bed, and Brian, for a second, goes with him, sprawled on his back on top of Pat's chest, Pat's softening cock still inside him. As it shrinks, Pat's come starts to leak out onto their thighs, and now it's just enough to make Brian groan and roll off and away, Pat slipping fully out of him to release the mess everywhere. Oh, god, it's _everywhere_. Brian feels another tingly wave of overwhelmed, sated arousal flush out through him. They - they did some fuckin' good work here today.

"Jesus, Brian," says Pat, from somewhere way up the bed, his arm flung over his face.

"Hooooo yeah," Brian agrees. "That was - you were incredible, babe." He rolls some more and stretches, just a little, trying to un-kink his thigh. "We gotta do that like, a bunch more times. As often as possible." 

"I - cannot believe I came so hard," says Pat. He sits up, a little, just on his elbows, so he can look down at Brian. "You sure you're like, good?"

"Pat Gill, I am so good," says Brian, smiling. "Totally worth it. You're like, _stupid_ hot."

"Okay, _you're_ stupid hot," says Pat. "Holy shit, that _suggestion_ thing? That was fucking _wild_, it felt so bad and so _good_ at the same time - "

"Oh, good, I'm glad that worked for you!" says Brian. "Because, _whoo_, it did a _lot_ for me."

"Yeah we can defo do that one again."

"Okay but I wanna suck _your_ cock next time."

"Oh, god, you can't just say that so matter-of-factly, I can't get hard again _any_ time soon, my dick is _wrecked, Brian_ \- "

"Ohmigosh, no, oh god, we gotta like. Take a short rest, at least, for sure," says Brian. "Here, lemme - do this little bit." Brian traces his _prestidigitation_ runes in the air and hums a lazy little post-coital tune to scrub their skin clean, to alleviate the wet spot. Pat does a cute, funny little wincing face as Brian prestidigitizes the come off his dick that Brian like, hugely loves. Brian's pretty sure he loves every dumb little thing Pat Gill does because he's pretty sure he just - loves Pat Gill. Honestly, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing that's happened to him today.

They should get under the blankets for a proper cuddle but Brian, at least, is still feeling a little too wrecked (god he's gonna be _sore_) and Pat doesn't look like he's doing much better. Pat's sprawled on his back across the mattress at just a little bit of an angle, and Brian comes up to tuck himself under Pat's armpit, head pillowed on his chest and body and legs stretched out just slightly the other way instead. He hugs Pat's arm to his chest, presses his hand over Pat's hand resting heavy and exhausted on his abdomen, and Pat's other hand finds its way to Brian's hair, stroking it lazily back from his forehead until it spills over and then doing it again, and again.

They lay in silence for a decent while. Recuperating. Finally, though, Brian has to just say, "Whatcha thinkin' 'bout?" 

Pat says, "Travis." 

Brian jolts, a little, in his embrace, and Pat chuckles. "Hi yeah you wanna - run that by me again - "

"No, okay, I, I was just like - it was just kind of cool, their whole - adventuring party, thing," says Pat. "Y'know, teamwork, and, and accomplishing quests, and and that kind of stuff. Working for a thieves' guild you don't get to know the other people on your jobs very well, that's kind of the whole point, for everyone to stay pretty guarded so you're harder to - trace, harder to leverage against, or whatever. I was a little jealous of those guys just like, having such a bond. I mean I get they were brothers or whatever but still."

Brian settles in closer to Pat's side, turns a little to rest his cheek on his chest. "No, I - I can see that," he says, contemplative. Yeah. "My sister - does stuff like that, and I've always been real impressed with her, she sounds like she's - like she's doing great, out there. Might be nice."

"So like maybe we should just - do it."

"Us?"

"Well yeah. I dunno, it - it felt good, working with you back there, against those - those monsters. Felt _real_ good, better than the thieves' guild crap. When you did that, that _bardic inspiration_ thing, or whatever that was? I just felt like we were so _on_. A good - a good team." Brian can't see Pat's face, but he thinks there's a blush there, creeping down to flood hot inside his chest under Brian's face, too. Brian twists to bury his smile in Pat's armpit.

It's a really dumb idea, but also - Brian absolutely, definitely wants to do this. To go adventuring, with Pat, for as long as they can possibly sustain it. But it is a _really_ dumb idea.

"Just the two of us won't make it too dang far, Pat Gill, not without someone who can take a hit or two. We almost got our asses handed to us by a _raccoon_." He says it more like _r'coon_, drops out the first syllable into a schwa for dramatic effect.

"Well, so we recruit some more folks, then. Someone beefier."

"You - you got someone in mind, then?"

"Y'know, I - I think that I do." Brian feels him shift, ever so slightly, like he's looking toward the door back into the bar. 

Brian thinks about a dark-robed cleric, half his height but double his strength modifier. "Yeah, y'know, like - me too, maybe, actually." Ew, he then immediately cringes from calling Jenna to mind while he's in bed with his - his. Boyfriend? Partner? He burrows further under Pat's arm. Pat's hand shifts out of his hair, starts tracing soft nonsense patterns along the skin of his upper arm with the tenderest of fingertips. Oh, god, Brian, don't say _lover_, that word is so goddamn revolting.

Not inaccurate, though.

"So - what?" says Brian. "We get up in the morning, go raid that cave for the good good, try to get enough money or loot to go - where? Because I'm gonna level with ya, friendo, I need to just - _not_ be around Vawksferry for a while."

"Oh no this town sucks ass," Pat agrees. "Is there even an actual ferry?"

"Not anymore, I don't think."

"Yeah, yikes. Well - wait, oh. _Oh_." He shifts underneath Brian, and makes moves to actually sit up, and Brian whines just a little because _nooo, we were cuddling_ but he lets Pat go, lets him get up and grab his jacket off the floor. Brian sits up, too, to follow him, wherever his brain is jumping to.

"You know this patch here," he says, pointing at the furthest-right of the four nestled in the jacket's lining, "you know, this thing turns into a _boat_ and I have literally _never_ used it?" He taps them in sequence, hitting the blank spot where his bag of holding should be, too: "Health potions, bag, ladder, _boat_. I have never fucking needed a boat before, it just came with the set. But - but now." Pat leaves it dangling, open-ended.

"Steal the raccoon treasure, pop a boat outta nowhere, sail on down the stream?"

"Well, I don't think it's a sailboat, really, just like a - y'know, we'd have to row it, or just let the river take us - "

"Please, Patrick, don't call that sorry-ass thing a river."

"Fine, _stream_ then," says Pat. "But - but yeah. Me and you. Gill - Gill and Gilbert. On the stream." 

Brian literally doesn't think he is capable of removing the smile from his face. Even as he leans forward, takes Pat's face in both his hands, and kisses him, square on his smiling mouth. 

"That," he says, "is a plan I could really get _on board_ with."

Pat scowls and groans at the pun, and tackles Brian back onto the bed, pinning him there with his body and kissing all over his neck and his face. They roll there for a little bit longer, until Brian's stomach starts rumbling, and they realize they haven't really eaten anything resembling dinner, but also they've spent all their money on this dumbass hotel room, and maybe, Pat says, Clayton will take pity on them and buy them some dinner, but wowzers, Brian says, that's sure not a great lead-up to _will you join our brand spankin' new adventuring party_, they're not gonna make a good impression, and Pat says, listen, they can't count anything that happens _today_ toward their identity as a party, it's been such a hot mess, but Brian thinks -

In the end -

Really, truly, it could probably all have gone a _lot_ worse.

  


\-----

FIN ♥


	3. Stats & Lore

> _"Our constitutions are...probably average." -- Brian, Gill & Gilbert episode 2_

  
**Brian David Gilbert,** College of Lore Bard, half-sun elf, level 6  
_STR:_ 11 -- _DEX:_ 12 -- _CON:_ 10 -- _INT:_ 14 -- _WIS:_ 14 -- _CHA:_ 21  
Skill proficiencies: Arcana, Deception, History, Performance, Persuasion  
Skill expertise: Deception, Performance  
Languages: Common, elvish, celestial (he learned it because he's a big nerd, and also because he thinks it's hot, which is something a big nerd would think but is also true); thieves' cant  
Cantrips: Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Minor Illusion, Vicious Mockery  
First level spells: Detect Magic, Disguise Self, Healing Word, Silent Image  
Second level spells: Enthrall, Locate Object, Suggestion  
Third level spells: Dispel Magic, Hypnotic Pattern, Major Image

I made the artistic decision to let Brian's Charisma score pass 20 even though that's not really allowed, and to compensate I nerfed the College of Lore feature that gives extra skill proficiencies. Because fuck you I do what I want, and because I felt like it made more sense character-wise for a bard who's achieving a higher character level but hasn't at all done so through combat or adventuring. I tried to have his spell set reflect that too - basically all intel, illusion or charm and no offense. But also this isn't gameplay it's fanfiction and who cares!! I've overthought this!!! Lmao.

**Pat Gill,** Thief-type Rogue, half-drow, level 6  
_STR:_ 13 -- _DEX:_ 21 -- _CON:_ 11 -- _INT:_ 13 -- _WIS:_ 12 -- _CHA:_ 12  
Skill proficiencies: Acrobatics, Insight, Intimidation, Sleight of Hand, Stealth  
Skill expertise: Insight, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, thieves' tools  
Languages: Common, elvish, undercommon, thieves' cant

I made the artistic decision to let Pat's Dexterity score pass 20 even though that's not really allowed because _have you seen his hands_.

  
Jenna is a stout halfling Grave-domain cleric to the Raven Queen. She uses her natural proclivity for being hardy and out-of-doors to travel around to different townships helping them build or renovate temples so Her followers have better, safer, spookier places to worship! Clayton is a firbolg monk following the Way of Tranquility. Official D&D lore says "Firbolg monks are almost entirely unheard of" but Trig and I say CLAYTON RIGHTS. I think in the hypothetical future when the adventuring party becomes Brian, Pat, Jenna and Clayton, Clayton and Jenna eventually each start leveling in the other's class as they share their skillsets [cry emoji] frandz

Meanwhile, in the McElroy party:  
Justin began his career as a College of Satire bard, until he got serious™ with Sydnee, at which point he began also taking some levels as a Life-domain cleric. Travis is an Oath of Devotion paladin, crusading in the service of not just one god but a secretive pantheon of deities, whom he does not ever care to dis-_cuss_, but which is definitely not a cult. Griffin is a Pact of the Blade warlock whose sword looks uncontrollably different every time he summons it because people keep giving new and different swords to his Celestial patron, Carly Rae Jepsen.

And of course, somewhere out there, tiefling sorcerer Simone is just SO peeved that she didn't make it into this fic.


End file.
